I have started to utilize the limiting features of Google News to filter out the garbage I am sick of seeing pop up. Every time a headline comes up that I cringe at just seeing, I click on the “three dots” and hover down to Fewer stories like this.

This doesn’t completely remove the bullshit, but it has been very effective at changing the sorts of stories that I see on a daily basis. I can feel a noticeable difference in the way I interact with others and myself. I am more inclined to be kind and have started to feel a return to giving people the benefit of the doubt instead of treating everyone as an adversary for self-preservation.

Political news has insidious effects on me that I never signed up for when I started to really pay attention. I’ve lost nothing to filter out this garbage, and I seemed to have regained my ability to just see more good in the world. A simple little tweak and I am feeling better about the world because I am not being told everything is terrible.

2024 started as a year I was sure was going to be an abortion because of the political minefield, but that was before I had the good sense to just check out of the whole thing. Now it feels rife with possibility.

To the news media at large, it’s not us, it’s you.