The more I talk to people, the more we seem to agree on something: blame doesn’t work. The bad news doesn’t empower us. The “talking about problems” without offering any solutions is BS. Ready to move to a more positive age?
The other day I was watching a Spanish comedy that makes fun out of the many problems of the country. Trust me, there are many problems in this “first world country”, from social, political, economics. The gig started with reading the breaking news found in Spanish national newspapers. The first title was “The humanity is making extinguish orangutans”. Initially, I was like “well, what could be possibly f*** funny about this”?! Obviously, the funny part is that he said “The humanity”.
Don’t get me wrong, but really, when we read news like this, we won’t take it personally. The media can accuse us to have killed these poor apes, but how did we kill them? What have we done for them to disappear?
I guess there are many ways we have contributed, but if you don’t explain, for example, orangutans are yet to disappear because big corporations are using a massive amount of palm oil, sourced from the forests they live in. And while we do buy such products, we never were asked if we wanted that to happen in the first place. In fact, does the average of the population know about it? Instead, we receive the blame.
The whole point is: do such headers in the news help us to find a solution, or even inspire us a bit, to change our habits? NO FREAKING WAY.
Personally, I don’t buy news like this.
I only want genuine positive solutions. I can be called idealist, but I don’t live in dreamland. I cannot stand accusations without telling about the solutions. It’s easy to blame, “You must take shorter showers because the children in Africa don’t have water to drink”. Obviously, it can make a difference, but it is 0.001% compared to the fashion industry (one pair of jeans costs us around 10,000 liters of water!).
And the meat industry…? The global average water footprint of BEEF is 15,400 liters per kilo. And yet, they don’t try to educate us, instead Media today just pushes contents that will make us consume more. Because corporations are the ones that pay for the advertising, and also the ones who call newspapers’ directors at 7am every day to tell them what the headlines should be.
Self-care starts with turning off the TV
As a marketer and journalist, while I was at Uni my teachers forced me to read the newspaper every day. Quite quickly I realized how damaging that became for my mental health. I was filling my brain space with information that did not make me feel I could take action whatsoever, but instead, it made me feel overwhelmed and even I was quite losing my sense of purpose. So I stopped and everything changed.
Now, since I am running a blog in the ethical and sustainable field, my whole world has filled with a huge WHY. Every-single-day. I wake up, do my yoga routine and engage with news that matters. Interviewing founders & changemakers, creators of truly innovative eco and social enterprises.
But seems that these are the “important news” that is not shared in the mass media.
At some stage, we need to think if this is the mass media; and whether it´s just about corporations.
It all goes back to us, and our individual choices. And the good news is that we have already started a revolution. Change is coming.
The “mass-everything” goes against authenticity. The new trend is the small, the positive, the collaboration, the “Hell Yes, let’s do this… TOGETHER”. Turns out, when you go out to the world and “do GOOD” you discover the universe is inside of you.
I choose to support the makers, the movers, the shakers. With my business and my personal daily choices. Trust me, it feels much better!
Find me in the eco-world, spreading the good news. Hope to see you around! x
