I have something of a confession to make: I really love listening to the kinds of podcasts that, if they were titles in a bookshop, would be found in that most ugly-sounding of sections: “self-help”. I suppose I listen, on and off, to a good half-dozen or so of them — they keep me company when I’m doing chores, they motivate me, and they often give me fresh ways of thinking about my life (and even about some of the subjects I write on).
But, in recent months, I have noticed a slightly troubling trend on these podcasts: many of them seem to be recommending that, in order to, you know, “live your best life”, you should switch off from the news entirely.
I should make it clear that I do not think we should all be the kind of “news junkies” who keep up with every incremental development of a story as if that were some kind of civic duty. At the risk of sounding like one of the self-help podcasters myself, feverishly following these “BREAKING NEWS” alerts as if they were goals in a football match is often simply an escape from dealing with the more complicated and fraught areas of one’s life.