The news we hear, for the most part, is not news  to our genius. It is the stalest repetition.  

Henry David Thoreau Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve  

been observing an increase in hopelessness  in my environment, both online and offline.  

I’ve noticed a lot of negativity about the future,  whether it concerns geopolitical events or the  

emergence of artificial intelligence. I get it.  

The world was already changing rapidly last  century, but the pace of development today  

seems to have increased exponentially. When we switch on our televisions, laptops,  

and phones, we’re bombarded with breaking  news, opinion articles, and analyses,  

and most of it just adds to the overall bleakness  portrayed by the media. I don’t want to delve into  

the details now, but there’s an endless stream of  information about political unrest, immigration,  

left versus right, and global conflicts. If you’re like most people, just noticing this  

endless stream of information will not leave you  unaffected. It may influence your political views,  

sometimes pushing them toward the extreme. It  can directly influence daily decisions, such  

as panic-buying a year’s worth of toilet paper  during a pandemic or abandoning travel plans.  

But it could also profoundly alter your mood. And,  to be honest, I’m not resistant to that either.  

Not too long ago, I experienced a  period during which I let myself  

tumble into the dark rabbit hole of  whatever constitutes the “news.”  

I was watching the news more often than usual,  following all kinds of channels that put out  

multiple videos a day, talking about the  latest developments on the world stage,  

under the guise of “fighting for democracy”  or “spreading the real message.”  

However, I soon realized that the more I watch  this type of content, the worse I feel. Sure,  

some things cheer me up, others entertain me,  but it’s just a matter of time before I stumble  

upon something that affects my mood negatively. The exposure to doom and gloom just makes me worry  

more than if I were to abstain from the news.  And the more I get sucked in, the more bleak my  

outlook on the world becomes. It’s really that  simple, and I don’t think I’m the only one.  

Funny enough, but certainly by design, is that as  soon as you watch a couple of videos on YouTube  

or click on a couple of social media posts, the  algorithm knows precisely what you’re looking for.  

It seeks to accomplish one thing: the  highest possible amount of clicks, which  

leads to more views and watch time, ultimately  resulting in more money from advertisers. So,  

from the moment you jump on the train of rage  bait and gloominess, it’s tricky to get off.  

Hence, I concluded that my relationship with  the news, and therefore, my relationship  

with the world and life in general, had  become problematic. And that I had to do  

something about my bleak outlook on life,  which had crept up on me so unnoticed.  

So, I asked myself: How can I worry less about all the  

gloomy things we hear on the news? How can I cope  with all the bad stuff that seems to be happening  

around me? How could I enjoy life when everything  just seems to be falling apart these days?  

There’s a lot of wisdom and practical advice  available to deal with this, in my opinion,  

human tendency to be overly concerned  with the negative aspects of life.  

In this guide, I’d like to share what  I found and what helps me. Hopefully,  

it also benefits you if you’re worrying about  today’s troubling times, just as I did.  

My name is Stefan. This is not an AI voice; I’m  a real person. I just wanted to make that clear.  

And follow me on Substack to stay updated about  all my work. I hope you’ll enjoy this video.  

One of the books I read a couple of times in  my expedition out of the news rabbit hole was a  

short book by Rolf Dobelli named “Stop Reading  the News,” which he describes as a “Manifesto  

for a Happier, Calmer, and Wiser Life.” Quite controversially, Dobelli advocates  

for a life without reading or watching the  news altogether. Now, many would consider  

a total avoidance of news to be irresponsible.  After all, as responsible citizens, aren’t we  

supposed to be up to date about what’s happening  in our environment so that we can act in the best  

interest of our communities? For example, aren’t  we supposed to stay updated about a spreading  

epidemic, so we know what precautions to take? Surprisingly, Dobelli argues against this  

reasoning. First of all, he believes that  most of the news is totally irrelevant to  

our lives. Think about it. Do you really  need to know about a flood in Bangladesh  

if you’re living in some mountain village in  Switzerland? How does this information directly  

influence your life? Most likely, it doesn’t. Well, you might ask, if you want to donate money  

to help the victims, isn’t it crucial to know  about what’s happening in the first place? And  

don’t we get that information from the news? Well, you don’t have to watch or read the news to  

donate to good causes and to update yourself about  current disasters. Most aid organizations have a  

website showcasing the causes they support, which  you can check if you’re interested in donating.  

Chances are, their information is much  more reliable and in-depth than what  

they tell you on the news. Dobelli isn’t the only one who  

observed the uselessness of the news. You may have heard of the philosopher Henry  

David Thoreau, who spent a period of his life  living in a cabin in the woods. Thoreau wasn’t  

a big fan of the news, as he saw it as a major  distraction from what he truly deemed important:  

a close relationship with nature, one’s direct  environment, and God. He felt that the things  

people read in newspapers every day were  repetitive; it’s always the same stuff.  

For example, if you’ve read about one  or two robberies, one or two shootings,  

haven’t you read about all of them? Why do we need  to know about every single one? And why do we need  

to stay updated about every single one of them  happening in areas where we never go or live?  

So, when Thoreau discusses the repetitive nature  of the news, I can see where he’s coming from.  

In terms of knowledge, does the news actually  bring something new? Does watching the news  

give us profound insights? Does it expand  our horizons? Or is it just repetitive,  

superficial, drivel that’s unnecessary  for us to function in our daily lives?  

Is the news, whether we get it from newspapers,  television, social media, or YouTube videos,  

closer to knowledge or closer to noise? Thoreau went a step further and called it  

“gossip,” saying that those who read it are  “old women over their tea.” Although I must say,  

old men over their coffee or beer, can be just  as caught up in the gossip we call “news.”  

If we examine most of the so-called “breaking  news” related to global events, for example, we  

can also spot a pattern of repetition. It’s always  the same thing. World leaders clashing, protests  

over failed policies, the threat of global war,  unrest in the Middle East, tensions between Russia  

and America, frictions between North Korea and  Japan, an earthquake here, a tsunami there.  

I’m not saying that these events  don’t matter at all, but how  

does exposing ourselves daily to repetitive  information about them benefit our lives?  

Suppose you’re living in a mid-sized city  in the Netherlands, like I am. Yesterday,  

two illegal immigrants robbed a grocery store  in Sweden, today there’s a protest in London,  

and tomorrow Putin has a meeting with  Xi Jinping. Is there anything I could  

do with that information that  benefits my daily activities?  

And what can we do about these global events  anyway? Do we gain any degree of control over  

events by constantly reading about them  or watching them unfold on a screen?  

If anything, we gain worry and gloominess.  Moreover, we begin to see the world as a  

place entirely subdued by adversity, where  every corner seems like a battlefield,  

every headline a disaster, and every  day another step toward collapse.  

After examining the uselessness of  news, let’s consider its reliability.  

I don’t remember a lot from what I learned in  high school, but there’s one specific lesson  

from social studies class that I vividly recall.  Our teacher was explaining the mechanics of the  

media and coined the term “selective perception.”  He explained that from all the “newsworthy” things  

that happen in the world, there’s only  a small percentage that make the news.  

There’s a selection, made by the media,  containing a minuscule part of actual events,  

which is then magnified, often in larger-than-life  proportions. This means that what we see in the  

daily news is not quite representative of  what’s happening in the world as a whole.  

This may come as a shock to some, as they  believe that watching the news allows them  

to stay updated about what’s happening in the  world. But in reality, they consume a carefully  

curated stream of events. And those who select  these events usually don’t have the intention  

to provide us with an unbiased, objective, and  representative overview of daily affairs. Most,  

if not all, news outlets, including independent  YouTube influencers, are driven by monetary  

gain. They want views, clicks, and sales. The classic “Amusing Ourselves to Death” by Neil  

Postman presents a compelling argument, suggesting  that since the advent of television, public  

discourse has shifted from rational, in-depth, and  argumentative to being driven by entertainment. By  

watching the news on TV (or, like many do today,  on social media), we think we’re well-informed,  

but we’re actually just being entertained. Few people today are willing to seek information  

in reliable, well-researched sources such as  peer-reviewed articles and books. Instead, they  

form opinions based on a TikTok reel and shape  their worldviews based on some influencer wearing  

a beanie yelling into a microphone (nothing wrong  with beanies, by the way). As people’s attention  

spans become increasingly shorter, the demand for  entertainment within news outlets increases.  

And thus, to maintain their audiences, news  outlets (including written media online and  

offline) must cater to the needs of their  viewers. And what do these viewers want?  

They want to be entertained. Failing to do so  results in viewers clicking away and seeking  

something more appealing. Hence, the more polarizing,  

the more ragebait, the more dramatic and  gloom-mongering, the more clicks it gets. This,  

of course, happens at the cost of well-researched,  in-depth, balanced pieces of information.  

And we should not overlook the fact  that the vast majority of news is bad  

news. Humans seem inclined, possibly out  of a survival instinct, to respond more  

strongly to bad news than good news. Hence, good news, such as the artificial  

reefs forming around windmills in the North Sea  or the fact that Dutch streets are far safer  

today than in past decades, or that immigrants  in the Netherlands are doing better and better  

in higher education, doesn’t really sell. So, we’re dealing with a “publication bias”.  

Bad news, frequent misinformation, and a vicious  denial of facts dominate our media because it  

sells. And this is a very dangerous thing. Considering selective perception, profit motives,  

the entertainment factor, and publication bias,  what can be said about the reliability of the  

news? Suppose we want to stay informed  about our planet. How reliable are news  

outlets in providing an objective and  representative view of the world?  

Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, known for  his rather pessimistic views on humanity,  

pretty much hits the nail on the head  when he called “exaggeration of every  

kind” essential to journalism, just as it  is to the dramatic arts, and I quote:  

“..for the object of journalism is to make  events go as far as possible. Thus it is  

that all journalists are, in the very nature of  their calling, alarmists; and this is their way  

of giving interest to what they write. Herein,  they are like little dogs; if anything stirs,  

they immediately set up a shrill bark.” End quote.

We just have to scroll through the collections  of popular news channels on YouTube to see that  

almost every video title and thumbnail  has this deeply ‘alarmist’ feel to it.  

It’s the “exaggeration of every kind” that  Schopenhauer talks about; little dogs that  

bark at anything that stirs. Aren’t such pieces  of so-called “news” closer to the “dramatic  

arts” than reliable, balanced information? However, that doesn’t mean that nothing bad  

ever happens in the world or that we should deny  the existence of specific issues or adversity in  

general. Unfortunately, bad things do indeed  happen. But most likely it’s not all horrible,  

as we get that impression if we  expose ourselves to the news.  

So, let’s suppose you reduce your news  consumption. Does that mean that all troubles  

are gone? Of course not. The world keeps spinning.  Bad things keep happening. The future remains  

uncertain. And destructive global conflicts  are still very much possible. If that bothers  

you and this “not-knowing” and lack of control  evokes a sense of anxiety, keep watching.  

While immersing ourselves in doom and gloom skews  our worldviews, denying adversity altogether is  

just another illusion. The former likely results  in anxiety and despair, or even anger and, in  

some cases, becoming prone to radicalization. The  latter leads to the inevitable ‘rude awakening,’ a  

painful collision with reality. What I’m trying  to say is that adversity is a part of life.  

There have always been conflicts  between groups of people, countries,  

and empires. Racism and xenophobia are probably  as old as the dawn of time; so are corruption,  

injustice, theft, inequality, and epidemics; so  are people who misbehave and are disrespectful,  

greedy, selfish, and uncaring of their  environment. For a significant part,  

humanity just sucks. And as long as humanity  sucks, bad things happen in the world. And  

even if humanity were flawless, the many natural  disasters and illnesses would still befall us.  

Yet, many people try to fight the world. They  fight against the misfortunes that are so inherent  

to the human condition. They strongly wish for  a world without injustice, without inequality,  

without anger and violence, where everyone is  happy, where bad people don’t exist. But despite  

their idealism, they’re confronted daily with  a world that doesn’t quite meet their criteria,  

especially if they watch the news. The mismatch between a desired outcome and  

reality is where feelings of discontent come from.  For example, harbouring a hatred of immigrants,  

yet still encountering immigrants during one’s  way to the supermarket, or being deeply averse  

to a specific politician, yet seeing his face on  TV every day. Such attitudes, whether justified  

or not, lead to profound personal misery. Stoic philosopher Seneca repeatedly stated that we  

can’t control “Fortune,” meaning the fickleness of  fate. We just have no say in how things work out.  

We don’t even control the events occurring in our  personal lives, let alone on the world stage.  

By worrying about troubling events, we worry  about things that ultimately aren’t within  

our control. We are emotionally affected  by these events because, to some degree,  

we allow our mental states to depend on them. If  we weren’t emotionally invested in these events,  

we wouldn’t worry about them, we wouldn’t  experience anxiety and other negative emotions.  

One of the primary tenets of Stoicism is to build  fortitude against things beyond our control.  

So, instead of wishing unfortunate events  not to occur, getting upset about them,  

and looking for a solution in the outside world  by somehow changing it, we look for the solution  

within, because, as the Stoics remind us,  it is the only place it can be found.  

So, the Stoics provide us with good and  bad news (pun intended). The bad news is  

that we’ll always be vulnerable to the whims  of Fortune. The fire of war, for instance,  

could very well occur at your doorstep. A deadly  illness could strike you at any time. Your  

government could turn fascist if the circumstances  allow it. In life, there is no safe space. We’re  

never safe. And it’s essential to accept this.  And if we do, we could look at the good news.  

The good news is that we can find a sense of inner  peace and happiness despite the inherent lack of  

safety. In this regard, the Stoics align with  Buddhists and Taoists, as well as therapies such  

as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and the concept  of Radical Acceptance from Dialectical Behavior  

Therapy. All these systems, so to speak,  seek the solution of suffering within.  

So, what practical measures can we  take to worry less about the news?  

There are many ways and methods to buttress  ourselves against the influences of the doom  

and gloom we see in the media. In  the practical part of this video,  

I’ll discuss a couple of actionable ideas  from philosophy that I deem helpful.  

To worry less about the world, it’s key to  improve one’s attitude toward it. Philosopher  

and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl famously wrote,  “When we are no longer able to change a situation,  

we are challenged to change ourselves,” which sums up the essence of this guide. Assuming  

you’re not omnipotent, you cannot stop adversity  from happening. To be free of suffering caused by  

external events, the most rational choice is to  focus solely on what is within your control.  

Ideally, we would cultivate such a fortitude that  watching the news for, let’s say, ten hours a day,  

wouldn’t affect us. But aside from the fact  that watching the news ten hours a day is a  

waste of time, is it even realistic to aim  for such an extreme level of resilience?  

Especially in the short term? We can’t all be  Buddhas within a week. And, the question is:  

should we even be aiming for that? Let’s consider a more pragmatic  

approach, starting with: a) Reducing news intake  

Remember Thoreau and Schopenhauer? They  say that news is characterized by gossip,  

noise, drama, exaggeration, and repetition.  They discouraged exposing oneself to it.  

Limiting my news intake significantly improved my  mood for the simple reason that, as I’ve noticed,  

a lot of news potentially has a negative impact  on my mood. When I began paying closer attention,  

I noticed that I often transitioned from a  reasonably good mood to a lesser one within  

minutes, simply because I came across  specific content that triggered me. It  

was very confronting, sure, but it’s true.  No matter how much I want to, apparently,  

I’m not emotionally resistant to the news. So, if you’re like me, just cut back or avoid.  

There’s nothing wrong with reducing your news  intake or even eliminating it from your life,  

especially if it harms your emotional state.  It’s your right not to watch the news.  

Also, I’d especially avoid mingling (or even  reading) the comment sections below news videos  

and articles; it’s a cesspool. You’re often  dealing with echo chambers. Those who have  

tried know that it’s impossible to argue with  these people. It’s essentially a fight against  

an algorithm that has defined their realities,  probably for a long time. Just don’t do it.  

However, if you still want to stay updated  to an extent, there are ways to do it without  

going on a binge. For example, you could  subscribe to a weekly email containing a  

summary of the most important stories, which  they offer at Reuters, among others.  

The next one is… b) Acceptance  

Yes, it sounds cliché. But it’s essential to  accept reality for what it is. It’s necessary  

to accept that life comes as it comes and that we  don’t have a say in what’s coming. The world is  

imperfect. There is violence and injustice. Many  human beings are insufferable and, most likely,  

this isn’t going to change anytime soon. What helps me as an immediate tranquilizer when  

I notice some inner resistances against the state  of affairs ‘firing up’ is the embrace of fate.  

This is a method commonly  used in modern Stoic circles,  

referred to as ‘Amor Fati:’ The love of fate. Simply put, I choose to accept and even embrace  

whatever happens and will happen in the  future. If this sounds silly, consider the  

following question: What’s the point of trying to  resist the inevitable? Embracing the inevitable,  

however, is liberating. What’s to fear if  we embrace anything that comes our way?  

This doesn’t mean that we should let ourselves  be trampled by everyone and everything. Welcoming  

fate is where it starts; dealing with fate when  it’s in front of us is a different matter.  

In most cases, reality unfolds very differently  from how we imagine it. I’ve experienced very  

often that a future event I’ve been dreading  and fearing for a while turned out not to be  

as bad as I thought it would be. And surprisingly,  I’ve fared pretty well in situations I initially  

feared. In some cases, my life has even improved  in unexpected ways, in circumstances I deemed  

unfortunate before they actually occurred. Amor fati eases the anticipatory anxiety of  

whatever may happen. Instead of being afraid  all the time for the next catastrophe,  

and what this might mean for ourselves and our  loved ones, we just welcome it and then deal  

with it in whatever shape it presents itself. Seneca summarizes this idea very well by saying:  

“We suffer more in imagination  than in reality.”  

The next one is… c) Impermanence  

No matter how bleak things may seem today, nothing  lasts forever. Suppose we indeed are on the  

verge of a global military conflict, or fascism  indeed is rising in what we’ve considered stable  

democracies for years. We can’t deny that things  have turned this way. A change has occurred,  

as it always does. Given that change is the  only constant, isn’t it rational to believe  

things can change for the better? Marcus Aurelius was highly aware of the  

transience of things, as he often mentioned it  in his meditations. He noted that great people,  

such as emperors and philosophers who walked the  Earth, have already turned to dust, and many are  

long forgotten. And like the coming and ceasing of  leaves, so come and cease the generations of men.  

“The world is nothing but change,” he wrote. I think it’s good to remember that, for most  

people, the whims of the day usually prevail.  We often struggle to look beyond our current  

concerns. Over the course of human history, there  have been numerous epidemics, economic hardships,  

armed conflicts, tyrants, political crises, and  so on. To the people involved, these moments must  

have been utterly significant. While, at present,  we probably don’t even recall these events.  

Remember COVID? When in the midst of it, it seemed  to be the crisis of our lifetime; something we’d  

talk about for many generations to come. The  news was all over it. The pandemic was all people  

talked about. But today, we don’t hear much about  it anymore. And I suspect that twenty years from  

now, many people will hardly remember it. Crises come and go, regimes change,  

tyrants rise and fall. Sometimes times are good,  sometimes times are bad. The Buddhists speak of  

the ‘Eight Worldly Winds’: forces of change that  blow everywhere, at all times: pleasure and pain,  

gain and loss, praise and blame, and fame and  disrepute. We cannot prevent these forces. We have  

no other choice but to endure them. We can either  ride along or get dragged along with them.  

So, how about some faith? And I don’t  necessarily mean belief in a supreme being.  

I mean a rationally supported kind of faith;  a faith that change will occur. A faith that,  

as history has shown over and over again, troubled  times eventually will change for the better, and  

the things we hear in the daily news, no matter  how alarming they may seem, will also fade into  

insignificance, often very quickly. Thank you for watching.

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Stop Letting the News Ruin Your Peace

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