When it comes to the news of the day, there are two kinds of people: the Wallowers and the Deniers. Wallowers are the ones who soak up the latest unemployment statistics the day they come out. They actually open up their 401(k) statements rather than just shoving them to the bottom of a drawer and draw pleasure from rants about bloated execs who used federal bailout money to give themselves fat bonuses. The Deniers are the ones who turn their heads, choosing to immerse themselves in the "Back to the Future" trilogy or scrapbooking , turning off the news altogether. As a journalist, I've long been in Camp A. It's my job to soak up every trace of news, even write bits of it myself sometimes. But last month, I hit a breaking point. I started doing crazy things, like dropping my signature at the end, unconsciously reflecting the Dow line I'd been looking at all day. And when that starts happening, you don't need to be a psychologist to know that too much of a bad thing is no good. But withdrawing completely wasn't an option, either. I didn't want to be disconnected from the world, stuck in a land where I came home to an Uno deck and a Tivo full of "30 Rock" episodes. I still wanted news, just not the kind that made me want to shrivel up and move to Guam.
I devised what I thought would be a cool scavenger hunt: find the
lost graveyard of good news. Was there really no good news out
there, or was it all just being covered up? I started slow. At
first I found a lot of neutral, debatable stories that could go
either way. Obama signing a broad bill to stimulate the economy
isn't exactly bad, right? Lots of folks would say it's not good,
either. The weather in Florida is warmer than usual right now,
which sounds fantastic. Nope, climate scientists would say it's an
effect of climate change that will eventually leave Florida under
water. Finally I got lucky. One after another, I came across a
handful of news organizations that only do good news. First I found
Ode, a monthly magazine with a Web presence that bills itself as
for "intelligent optimists" (which, aside from its accuracy, is
great marketing). Their business model is built upon something so
relevant, so constructive that I couldn't stop reading. There are
features and columns from people with a positive take on
everything. And I mean everything. They even found something good
in the mortgage crisis. Did you know that there’s an
organization that matches homeless people with foreclosed homes
that are vacant and owned by a bank or the local government? OK,
it's not exactly legal in all cases, but the piece notes that "city
of Miami spokesperson Kelly Penton says the authorities will only
intervene if the legal owners complain." And good luck finding the
owners when half the nation's mortgages have been sliced and diced
and sold off to 10 different entities. In Cleveland, reports Ode,
they've come up with a proposal to pay homeless people to fix up
foreclosed homes and live in them while they do it. Now don't you
feel better? Thanks Ode. That taste of the glass-half-full turned
my afternoon hobby into a sort of addiction (Yes, my name is Daniel
and I have a problem with good news).
But psychologically speaking, it turns out that trying to see the positive in such a negative environment isn't that bad, so long as you do for the right reasons and don't become an outright Denier of reality. According to psychologist Steven Hayes, author of the book "Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life," it's fine if you're looking at the positive just for the sake of learning something positive. "But if you're only looking for the good in order to keep the wolf at bay, then your mind will constantly be thinking about the wolf, and you don't really escape. It all comes down to your level of psychological flexibility." Some people need to keep up on the bad news so they feel prepared, or maybe more in control. It can be a way to brace yourself for even worse news, says University of Florida psychologist James Shepperd. But in most cases, the human tendency is to lean toward optimism, in hopes of a better day. People who revel in the negative, even find joy in it—a longing for what a New York Magazine writer called “pessimism porn”—usually have enough distance from effects of bad news to feel personally affected. Once those job loss numbers hit home, it's not as easy to soak up the details of a market drop or feel satisfied because you predicted a market drop and it actually happened.
The best reason to get a healthy dose of good news is that it's
good for you. Studies show that a calm and optimistic mind can have
health benefits, like lower blood pressure and deeper sleep. Which
explains why it's not just me; good news is a pretty hot commodity
these days. Of course it's impossible to find a positive spin on
every bit of depressing information that comes across on the
cable-news crawl. But organizations that dish up unreported or
unnoticed positive stories are becoming hot commodities. Ode's
circulation (currently just above 100,000) has more than quadrupled
in the past year, and Geri Weis-Corbley, who runs a Web site called
the Good News Network on a pay-what-you-think-it's-worth model,
says people are definitely in the giving mood. NBC recently got in
the game when they began asking viewers for positive stories to
feature on their evening broadcast, which had, like everything
else, been thick with depressing recession stories since last fall.
They got an overwhelming response.
People not only wanted to watch good-news reports, they had lots of
their own good news to share. I'm even learning to spin bad news
into optimistic gold all by myself. Watch this: more people losing
their jobs has actually led to a massive increase in stay-at-home
parents, which is great for childhood development. Bam.
If there's one big upside to the downturn (and there are plenty, if
you look), it's that tough times are provoking a hunger for stories
about the ways Americans are helping each other out—which can
also inspire us to do more do-gooding on top of the good-news
seeking. And maybe we're also feeling a little tougher, a little
less easily rattled. The shocking has now become the norm. ("The
Dow dropped 300? Didn't it do that last week?"). And that makes it
easier to appreciate the good news when we do find it—not a
bad habit to get into even when things are booming.
By Daniel Stone | Newsweek