I’ve been reviewing the positive inputs and the negative inputs in my own life. I recently experienced some losses in my life and was starting to feel pretty sad. After I took a good look at it, I decided that the sadness was reasonable. Still, am choosing to cut back on some sources of negativity so I don’t get sucked down into a depressive vortex.
Because I cut out the evening news many years ago, the most obvious source of negativity for me is Facebook. My goodness – all the Facebook negativity! This group is taking over the world. That group is totally inept. There are just tons of posts about what is going wrong. And I found myself reading more and more.
In fact, John told me just the other day that Facebook uses an algorithm that takes into account what types of posts I’ve been clicking on and gives me more of those kinds of posts. Oops. By reading negative stuff, I was inadvertently giving myself more negative stuff. I was creating a snowball of negativity.
I decided to just take a break from reading Facebook posts for a while. I still receive Facebook Messenger messages and I check my notifications. Our blog is posted to Facebook automatically and I don’t want to miss any potential interactions related to Simply Great Lives. But I’m abstaining from reading other posts for now.
I’m happy to say my mood is improving. I’ve been continuing to listen to the book, Thou Shall Prosper, and I just re-started Mindfulness for Beginners which I started once before but did not finish. Plus I’ve been spending more time with John because he’s got a good head on his shoulders. He gives me a balanced perspective and encourages me. I’m plugging into more positive inputs.
I believe it’s important to make sure we are getting enough positive stuff and limiting the negative stuff that we’re letting into our lives. There’s no way we’ll be able to focus on being a benefit to other people if the negativity we are letting into our lives is sucking us dry.
By the way, I do believe there are some appropriate times to post real-world issues to Facebook. First, I think we should post about things we are passionate about, that we really want other people to know about. However, I think it is only beneficial to post those things when they include a potential call to action. Here are a couple examples:
- “So if you want to let your government representatives know how you feel about this issue, click the link below for a list of Congressional email addresses.”
- “If child sex trafficking weighs heavily on your heart like it does on mine, click on Courage Worldwide’s link to find out how you can help.”
I’m thinking bad news without a call to action and a resource to get people pointed in the right direction is just complaining. That kind of behavior just tears people down instead of building them up.
