Bismillah
Brother Noufal Ibrahim has a post up called News Fast that got me thinking more on the topic of avoiding the news. I do prefer to avoid the news for many reasons. Firstly, I have too much going on in my life as it is and too many thoughts to be able to keep up with more. Secondly, the news angers me. The more I read the news the more I realize how backwards we have become as a people, in all arenas of life. I get saddened when I read about our world being destroyed, children dying, women being raped, men losing their faith, unjust war, and all the other things that are happening. What can my anger do? It’s only harming me.
I know what’s going on. All it takes is to step out of my home and talk to people. People tend to fill me in on some of the news. My own husband asks me about certain things and I tell him I, quite often, that I had no idea! I really don’t care to know everything because most is too negative and I already know it. I prefer to deal with what is going on locally and make du’a’ for what is going on globally or try and help in other ways that I can. I know people are starving all over the world. I know there are injustices. But I am a wife and a mother with a home to provide for my family and two children to raise. I prefer to spend my time trying to better myself as a servant of my Creator. This is A LOT of work. I want my children to be proactive when it comes to taking care of the needy but they don’t need to hear it from the news. We should be on top of this stuff, at least in our own localities. With the time change, busy lives, and lack of barakah in our time, and not having the means, locally is sometimes all we can manage. This is okay. Allah knows!
There are more important things to keep up on than reading the news. If we talk to our neighbors we will find out what it is THEY need and what others need. Finding out about the latest facebook complaint is not on my list of priorities at all. I really do not care! I’m really contemplating removing my facebook account. I stay on because I find interesting reads and events but it’s too much information for my brain, honestly. Sadly, I’ve attempted to remove it several times and come back to it. Maybe I should get encouraged by the fact that my husband removed his account… yeah, I’ll do that insha’Allah.
A question that I have for anyone reading this. Do you really have the time and space in your mind for reading of the news? Is there a way that we can cut back and focus on certain topics vs everything? I, for example, do like to keep up with issues that affect mothers trying to have babies at home or naturally after a cesarean or homeschooling (like one of my latest posts). This is my little area of joy, area where I like to stay informed so that it can help others. But even that has its limits now. There is just way too much information out there. Too much.