I’ve had enough of the news. No, that’s not accurate: I’ve had too much of the news. It crept up on me during the Supreme Court hearings. I started listening to news show after news show, watching what I call My Sources. The obsession even seeped in during my time in Florence in September when I was there alone to walk around with God and find peace, joy, and balance in my life.
Now, once again, thank God, I have returned to what this blog is all about--silence, solitude, and simplicity. In particular, it is silence that I must return to: silence in my head, and silence in public. Although I still have strong opinions and I am still angry about the political scene, I know it doesn’t serve me to keep ranting, because in doing so my opinions and anger run my life, and what kind of a life is that?
Years ago, through an exercise in The Path: Creating Your Mission Statement for Work and for Life, by Laurie Beth Jones, I articulated my life mission: to inspire, affirm, and encourage peace, joy, and balance in teachers.* On my good days I still live this mission for all people, although believe me, even on those good days I forget or miss the mark. However, on the days when I obsess over the news, I fail miserably. Not only do I forget my purpose, but it fades away from who I am, and I become the person I don’t want to be. In its place, all I am able to be is be angry, and when I am angry there is no silence in me.
Sometimes we have to ask ourselves the most obvious of questions. This is one of those times for me. I am an optimistic, positive human being. Is there any reason I should allow such negativity to seep in and run my life? The answer is NO.
* I wrote about the process I went through in The Teacher Book: Finding Personal and Professional Balance, published by Heinemann. My audience at that time was teachers, but the mission is for all people.