Three weeks ago I stopped watching the news.
Not intentionally. Life just got in the way and I never went back.
Here's what happened in those three weeks.
I slept better. I thought clearer. I made better decisions. I was more present. I was more focused. I was genuinely happier than I had been in months.
And somewhere in those three weeks — a war started.
I didn't know. I didn't get the alert. I didn't see the breaking news banner. I didn't watch the panel of experts tell me how to feel about it.
And my life didn't change.
That's the part nobody wants to say out loud.
I'm not telling you the war doesn't matter. I'm telling you that your consumption of it doesn't change it. The war started whether you watched or not. The outcome will be determined by forces that have nothing to do with how many hours you spent consuming coverage of it.
What changed was me.
The news isn't informing you. It's running you.
The outrage is a product. The anxiety is a feature. The 24-hour cycle exists because your attention is worth money to someone — and the fastest way to keep your attention is to make you feel like something terrible will happen if you look away.
Nothing terrible happened when I looked away. A war started and I missed it and I was the happiest I'd been in months.
I wish the news was what it used to be. One hour. Facts only. No opinions. No 24-hour cycle. No one telling you how to feel. Just what happened in the world today. That's it.
But that's not the game being played.
The game being played is your attention. Your anxiety. Your outrage. Your clicks. Packaged and sold to the highest bidder while you sit there convinced you're staying informed.