The Recovering Farmer

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

What’s In The News

Have you watched news lately? What is with all the tragedies happening, not only around the world, but also relatively close to home? In answer to the question, no, I don’t watch a lot of news. I used to. Every morning. Half an hour of Canadian news and half an hour of American news. I suppose I got to the point where I felt “over exposure “ to news. I talk about “over exposure” in my stress management workshops. I have experienced it. I have heard from others who have experienced it. I mentioned some time ago that my son had linked me in to a news website that only reported good news stories. That helped. At least temporarily. Then I realized I couldn’t relate anyway and so I have quit reading those stories as well.

What about the massive train derailment in Quebec? Unbelievable. The first thing that came to mind is the movie Unstoppable. The story of a train that, through human error, goes barreling down the track putting lives at risk. We have all heard the saying, “stranger than fiction”. Now we are witnessing it. Through “alleged” human error a train loaded with crude oil derails in a small community in Quebec. Created a holocaust type event. Looked like a war zone. Many people still missing. Incredibly sad.

There is the plane crash in San Francisco. Just read another article on that one. The NTSB is still trying to figure out what went wrong. It would appear, based on initial reports, that it is human error. The amazing part of this story is that there were only two people that died. Have you seen the pictures? Now it turns out that one of the girls that died actually escaped the crash only to be run over by a fire truck. Come on. Really?

Then we have the story of the running of the bulls in Spain. Latest report, only three people gored. As if we don’t have enough problems already it would appear that we are looking for ways to get hurt, perhaps even to die.

This morning I perused the headlines again. More tragedy. More sadness. It does not help when one already has serious questions about life. About our very existence. It gets to the point where even finding a happy place becomes difficult.

Last week I went on a radio show and talked about stress management and conflict resolution. At times I feel like such a hypocrite. Let me tell you why. As you know by now we live on a golf course. This morning I noticed a golf ball laying on our property. I was tempted to go get it. I didn’t. This afternoon, as I was sitting on the deck enjoying the sun, someone walked on my yard and picked up the ball. I looked at my daughter, she looked at me, and we let it be. Five minutes later we looked at each other and both agreed that we should have made an issue about that. Why? When my wife came out and enquired as to what was going on I told her the story and then suggested I was going to go put a another ball there just to give me an opportunity to take a strip off . . . . Woah. Hang on. What is going on here?

That seems to be the theme these days. Having an urge to lash out at someone. And if worse comes to worse, create a situation where I can lash out. Seems to me I have some work to do. Get over this negativity. Get on with life. I am golfing. The weather is good. Kids are good. Wait a minute. My grandson is in California having a good time. Perhaps I am envious. Perhaps I miss him. I am on it. Make it a good one.

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