Choose Good News
A guy goes to his doctor, who tells him, "I have good news, and bad news." The man says, "Alright, I want the good news first." The doctor says, "Okay. You have 24 hours to live." The patient says, "What??? What can be worse than that?" The doctor replied, "I've been trying to contact you since yesterday."
Likewise, I have some good news, and some bad news. I'll start with the bad news. And it's about...bad news.
A recent study reported in the Harvard Business Review revealed that watching just three minutes of negative news in the morning makes it 27% more likely that you will describe your day as "unhappy" or "depressing" by the end of the day.
The study, performed by psychology researchers Shawn Achor and his wife Michelle Gielan, determined that workers who consume negative news — even as little as three minutes — potentially bring an unhappy and sluggish work ethic to the office, preventing both individual and company goals from being met.
The researchers found that negative news affects our approach to work and the challenges we face,, because it presents a perspective of life in which our behavior seems irrelevant. Most news stories highlight problems in the world that we can do little or nothing about. This sense of helplessness, referred to as “learned helplessness,” is associated with low performance and a higher likelihood of depression.
Something tells me it's not just the workplace where bad news influences us, though that was the point of the Harvard study. Evert day we are bombarded with negative stories about crime, violence, war, disease, the economy and divisive politics. And you don't have to be an Ivy League researcher to figure out that constant negativity affects our stress level. Exposing ourselves to that kind of news--whether we're watching a TV broadcast or scrolling through social media--can affect the entire emotional trajectory of our day.
The researchers recommended that we seek out "solution-focused news" — stories of resilience and accomplishment that reinforce the belief that our behavior matters; stories that inspire us to take action and work toward resolving the challenges we face. That kind of news inspires optimism, which, Dr. Achor asserts, is the greatest predictor of entrepreneurial (or any kind of) success. That sounds like a good suggestion, though I'm not sure how you can pick and choose about which news you are exposed to.
But here's the good news: We have a choice, NOT to listen to the noise at all. We can turn it off if we want to. You don't have to be informed about everything, every day, and you might want to ask yourself how that 24/7 access to all the news, all the time is working out for your own mental health. Probably not for the good.
What if I told you that it's just not worth what it does to our stress levels just to make sure we stay informed? And be assured, the urgent news will eventually find you anyway, and you won't be any worse off for not knowing it when everyone else did. More than anything, it really can be liberating when you finally pull the plug on the bad news.
Of course, for those of us who follow Jesus, we have another choice. Instead of aimlessly scrolling the clickbait that clutters our newsfeed, we can intentionally choose good news.We can feed our minds with the truth of the gospel, which of course means "good news." The best alternative to the Negative News Syndrome is to purposely "set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth." (Colossians 3:2)
Let's be a people of good news today, and share that gospel with a world that needs it so desperately. I'm praying for you, as I hope you are for me, and I look forward to seeing you Sunday.
--Pastor Ken
