Sometimes there’s only one shoe.
—Carrie Newcomer
Yesterday, I woke up to a benign text message from my brother: “Safe in Boston,” it read, with a little airplane emoji.
Still groggy, I remembered that he and his family were returning from a trip abroad. He was letting me know they were safe on the ground. My sisterly heart pitter-patted a moment, feeling loved for his thinking of me.
I almost went back to sleep then, but I wondered…Wait. What did he mean by “safe in Boston”?
Was he checking in as “safe” from some horrific Boston event I hadn’t yet heard about? I’m usually a level-headed person, but under stress, I can go into a full-blown panic, spiraling through worst-case scenarios. Suddenly, his sweet message seemed ominous!
Despite it being only five in the morning, I quickly Googled “Boston news” just to skim the headlines and make sure all was well. I should know better than to look at my phone that early.
Of course, nothing related to my brother’s trip had happened. No hijacking. No airport shooting. Nothing.
This should have allayed my fears, but I had just subjected myself to a perusal of the news, and none of it was good:
- Body found at Boston home of…
- New Boston wildfire prompts evacuation…
- Potential cyanobacteria algae bloom between the Charles River…
- Alleged Russian cyber spy in Boston worked at…
- Canadian wildfire smoke…
All before I’d even had my first cup of coffee.
At Americans of Conscience, we specialize in making complex issues clear. We deliberately keep our wording simple and low-drama because we know it’s hard enough out there already. But that takes work.
For those of us who care deeply about the world we live in, it’s not hard to get caught up in the onslaught of headlines every day. We’re tracking how bad it is. We’re aware of the assaults, big and small, that offend our values and our dreams.
Our vigilance can, unfortunately, become a lens that distorts reality. If you sometimes assume the worst, it’s because you’re a conscientious person trying to stay informed during a profoundly unkind chapter of our nation’s story.
The truth is that all of those headlines do not reflect the full picture of our nation. That’s why they’re headlines. If they were all ordinary, everyday events, they would never make the front page or Google’s top results.
Fortunately, over the years, I’ve created strategies to prevent me from assuming the worst or letting it demoralize me. I’ve taught classes at AoCC that focus on practices that build up our resilience and clarify what really matters.
The most important of these practices, I believe, is to immerse ourselves in a fuller reality—to turn off the news feed and look around. The truth is that people are, right now, quietly solving problems, speaking up for democracy, caring for neighbors, and building the future we seek—one ordinary action at a time. That’s the news we need. That’s actually what’s going on, even if it never makes the news.
So, if you recognize yourself in my 5am freaked-out reaction to a simple text, take heart. We, the informed, do not need to care less about what’s happening or become callous. We simply need to care sustainably. Instead of living in a state of alarm (or its evil cousins, cynicism and despair), we can connect with what—and who—matters most, including ourselves. We can put our energy not on terrible stories about terrible people, but on who is already showing up to help and how we want to participate.
At the end of the day, the best thing we can do—for ourselves and our democracy—is resist letting our fear write the story. So, join me in making room in your heart for the good that We the People have accomplished so far and for what we can yet achieve together.
Because, together, we are bigger than the headlines.