Blessings and battles

I'm not one for New Year's resolutions but having said that, I usually use the break over Christmas to review the year that's been and to give thought to what needs to be done in the year ahead, especially with the view to improving things or doing things better overall.

2019 was not a happy year for me, but not for the reasons you may first guess. My unhappiness last year was impacted on by a couple of things, one being the uncertainty in the media generally, in particular what might happen on the local print media scene and the other reason, the way people seemed to be being brainwashed into feeling about life generally.

Last year, like many others I'm sure, I was suckered into giving too much attention to the bad news that we were all bombarded with throughout 2019 and as we all know, there was a lot of really bad news flying around, especially at the end of the year and into 2020. I'm certainly not trying to make light of the tragedies that so many people have had to face over recent weeks and months, but I do honestly believe that as a Nation, if we let the bad news get too much of a hold of us, all manner of things will continue to slide downhill more than they ought. I firmly believe that the way people "feel" generally has a bearing on all areas of life, including our overall health and well-being. I don't have the space or inclination to elaborate too much here on that, but I will say this; things happen when people are motivated and it's hard to get and stay motivated if everything we see and hear around us is heavily weighted or focused with bad news. Everything in life needs to be balanced, and that includes what we let infiltrate our thoughts and minds.

Sad to say, I let things get out of balance in my mind last year in the two areas and I mentioned, and I'm determined not to let the same thing happen this year.

I mentioned before Christmas that our Community Project this year would be "Local Media is Best" and part of the way I'll be using Orange City Life this year will be to keep bringing our readers stories and perspectives that I hope will help locals "feel good" and have a balanced view on the things that happen around us. Life is full of blessings and battles and to the best of my ability, Orange City Life will make sure that any blessings we cover get full value and any battles we cover are put in a right perspective, NOT just given the sensationalist treatment that so many media outlets are bent on doing.

We're only small in the overall media scene but if we do our job well, maybe those with more clout that Orange City Life will come to see that a right balance between positive and negative is not only right and fair, but such an approach will advance our city and our nation along the way.

My firm belief is that if you're looking for more blessings in your life, the best way to cultivate that is to think more about the needs of others and do what you can to meet them. Orange City Life will therefore be encouraging our readers to do just that throughout 2020, if enough of us do, Orange and our Nation will be better off for it.