Never Walked In High Heels

I’ve always been a big-picture thinker. I don’t care about what’s going on down the street, but rather what’s going on in the rest of the world. Once I actually ended a relationship with someone who tried to make me only see the small and local problem. He would say, “You can’t change the world, you can only change yourself.” That wasn’t my style at all. So I’ve surprised myself this New Year by making a resolution to watch the news less. Actually the resolution is to not watch the news at all, but given the ubiquity of it, I don’t think avoiding the news altogether is entirely possible.

In today’s world, keeping up with current events seems to be a sort of status symbol. If you don’t watch the news you’re considered by many to be non-educated. At every school I’ve applied for they repeatedly begged their prospective students to stay up to date with what is going on in the world. And in truth I am a news-aholic. Politics is the only full-contact sport that my family shares. I was raised listening not to music but talk radio approximately eight hours a day and have been known to get little done while listening intently to news broadcasts. I surprised myself with this resolution when I set it.

Recently watching the news makes me feel in less control of the world. Actually more specifically it makes me feel a combination of despondence and high blood pressure. Every network shapes the opinions of others by superfluous things. I trust that reporter because of how he looks people in the eye, or I don’t trust that one because of what he said last week regarding a completely separate issue. And this is how the journalism industry works, trying to win people over in an intense form of competition, via shaping the news however they can.

Turns out, I argue with friends about politics more than I do to take any action about the subject. “People should…” I begin my argument. Never acting in the way I recommend myself. For that matter, few of us do. So we just talk about the problem rather than actually doing something about it, assuming that the politicians or someone else will fix it for us. And then we can talk about them.

But, the problem goes deeper than that. Not only do I question whether watching the news can lead to some sort of inactivity, I’ve begun to wonder if we even watch the same news. One channel says one thing and the other says the complete opposite. This is truly the strength of the broadcast industry, using journalism to create a crisis, not only in their own reports, but also in the fact that they directly contradict each other, throwing the public into a situation where we have nothing but superfluous things to figure out who to trust. If everything was fine in the world, or stable, journalists would have little to do.

I am a big picture thinker. But the biggest thing I can do at this point in time to affect the world is to act boldly where I am placed. It’s not Washington DC, and it’s not even the Parliament in London. It’s on her little quiet street on the Thames that overlooks Canary Wharf but yet is surrounded by neighbors who have their own needs and problems and crises to attend to. From them, this year, I attend to learn as much as I can and be as active among them as much as I can, because there is something to be said for the idea that we are all made for such a time and a place as this. We are all made to bring forth change for such a time and a place as this.