During this most recent winter storm, I remember sitting on the couch scrolling through Instagram as the news played in the background. For the next couple of hours, the meteorologists and anchors babbled on and on about the dangerous conditions and what we should and shouldn’t be doing.
I should have been concerned about their warnings, but in reality, I tuned them out, more interested in the videos of adorable animals playing in the snow. It was at this moment that I realized that I was suffering from a bad case of news fatigue.
We can all agree that 2020 was a momentous year for all the wrong reasons. Kobe Bryant, an iconic athlete to whom many looked up, died tragically in a helicopter crash. Several hurricanes rolled in from the sea to pay us a visit. The coronavirus decided people no longer needed to interact with each other, so it shut down the country for a while. On top of that, 2020 was an election year, and we all know how crazy election season makes us.
That’s just the stuff I remember. It’s safe to say the news didn’t have to go too far to find a story to report on.
With everything going on, I found myself not really wanting to put on the news. I was dreading it, actually. What could possibly be going wrong today? That’s been my mindset this entire year. We’ve faced so many things, so what could possibly scare me more than a global pandemic? It definitely wasn’t going to be a little ice storm.
Even though I knew how dangerous and serious it could be, I didn’t really care to watch the reports on it. I didn’t care to watch the media talk about the election; I didn’t even care to listen to the discussions on President Biden’s disappointing start to his presidency. It’s all because I’ve grown numb.
The news used to be a source of new information for me. Now, it just serves as a daily reminder that the world is falling apart.
So why not just turn off the television? I know that you, reader, are just as tired of it as I am.  
That doesn’t mean that we do not care. We just need to take a break, because left unchecked, one can find themselves becoming very pessimistic. Turning on the television and seeing the number of deaths from COVID-19 continuing to rise, then switching over to another news channel and seeing Syria being bombarded by missiles — you begin to think no good news could possibly come at this point. 
Don’t worry, however. I’m not ending this on a low note, because even though things may seem rough right now, I know it can’t last forever. I just read a fellow columnist’s piece about self-love, and it made me realize that life is not 100% terrible.
Her take on the importance nurturing a heart for loving yourself reminded me that everything is going to be alright. Even if it doesn’t, I’m still not going to turn on the news.
Anthony Bui is a 20-year old English junior from Opelousas.