Today’s Thoughts
I was thinking today, how good I am at polluting my head with all the things that are wrong with my life, the country, the world and not for one moment am I putting the same amount of effort into the long list of things that are good about my life, the country, the world.
We live in a crazy society where we have been conditioned to believe, bad news sells. Newspapers peddle it all the time, even making us think they are doing us a service by their warning of horrors, impending doom and the failings of others. But the truth is they’re not, they are selling advertising around every column inch they write, its big business and the more they burrow reactive negativity into our heads the more the story has ‘legs’ and gets promoted and before you know it, a small incident becomes embellished and headline news.
Do you remember back in the day we had lunchtime news, a bulletin at six o’clock and then depending on what channel you were watching a final evening news around nine or ten. That was it, we went to bed listening to the national anthem and tomorrow was another day.
If it was hot, no one told us to drink water and wear a hat and if it was cold no one told us to wrap up warm and wear a hat because there wasn’t time, and we knew it anyway.
Today we have a monster in our life. It’s a 24-hour TV, Digital and Radio news monster, whose appetite is so huge it needs constant feeding with scrumptious bad news! But sometimes the noise is too much, so my homework this week, and yours if you would like to accept the challenge, is to channel your inner Pollyanna and play ‘The Glad Game’. Pollyanna if you remember was an orphan created in 1913 by writer Eleanor H Porter who had an unjustifiable optimistic attitude to life because her father, when he was alive, told her that if she stopped crying, he would teach her a game that would bring her more happiness than any doll ever could.
The Glad Game is about being optimistic, celebrating good positive aspects of your life and not letting little problems or even big ones pollute and distort the bigger picture. There is light in the darkest corners but you must be determined to look in order to find it. I know I can do it because Pollyanna was the nickname given to me by my Blue Peter co-presenter Diane Louise Jorden. We were in Argentina at the time, wet, tired freezing cold and a little bit grumpy until ‘Turner’ starting playing The Glad Game, DiDi probably wanted to poke my eyes out at the time but we ended up laughing. Still firm friends and I honestly can’t remember the last time she called me Anthea, always Pollyanna.
So have a go and if you want to snuggle up for a little trip down memory lane, watch the film, there are two – one made in 1960 staring Hayley Mills and the other made in 2003 staring Amanda Burton. Either way, let Pollyanna lighten your day!