I took a couple of weeks off of reading the news, generally doing no more than glancing at the headlines and sometimes taking a quick look at the first paragraph of a story in order to get a better sense of what it was about.

Why, you ask? I’d been getting a bit too involved with reading the news and there was something of a compulsive element to it, as if there wasn’t such a thing as “too much news.” I didn’t like the effect it was having on me and so I decided to take my little break.

I’m now back to reading the news again, but the break has been really beneficial. Now I’m reading a few major stories in the New York Times in the morning plus some of the Op Ed section, and later in the day I drop into the BBC News site or MSNBC.

I’m spending less time reading and the tone is different. Really I could do with a retreat so that I can get away from over-stimulation even more, but we’ll be traveling to Ethiopia soon in order to bring our adopted daughter home, and I’m working like a dog to get some projects finished before I go. No rest for the wicked!