Are you sick of the news?

Once upon a time I was passionate about the news. I am going to give away my age here and reveal that I was in college when Kent State happened. I followed the news intently from that point on, since I figured my government was out to kill me, and I wanted to have at least some idea of what it might be getting up to next. I continued in this mode for a very long time until I got a job that required me to commute almost an hour and a half each way to work. I am a big NPR fan and I listened to "Morning Edition" coming and "All Things Considered" going. I watched CNN and subsribed to 3 newspapers plus I read my Mom's paper that she got each week from Switzerland. In all due modesty I was probably one of the best informed persons on the planet regarding current events. Then one day I was driving to work when the reports of the Oklahoma City bombings started to come in. I heard about those poor little kids in the day care center there. Tears started to roll down my cheeks and before I knew what hit me I was sobbing uncontrollably and had to pull off to the side of the Interstate. It took me a while to regain my composure and I was twenty minutes late to work that day. I realized that all those news reports were doing were telling me tales of suffering and horror that I was powerless to do anything about. My own life was difficult enough. I didn't need this other stuff on top of it all. I did a complete 180 and stopped listening to the news or reading the papers at all. If anything earth shattering happened, my friends would be sure to tell me. Now I get a little news (as much as I can stomach) from the headlines when I log onto the net. I'm happy this way and see no need to go back to being the news junkie I once was.