Happy Mother’s Day to all! As I was growing up, my mum used to tell me, “Don’t believe everything you hear.” But in the current age of misinformation, how do we find truth amid the lies?

Welcome to the 112^th edition of The Sunday Spark, a series with weekly thoughts and highlights, nuggets of learning, and a simple living challenge for the week. To help you survive in an age of misinformation, this week’s edition has reliable information on papal conclaves, prioritizing the wellbeing of future generations, foods to nourish your eyes, and price matching apps.

On my mind this week: Seeking truth in an age of misinformation

Growing up, my parents often told me, “Don’t believe everything you hear.” And that was usually followed by, “Seeing is believing”. The basic message was, unless you see something with your own eyes, it may not be true. It was valid advice in the era I grew up in. But times have changed.

Earlier this week, I read a news article that reported more than three-quarters of Canadians said misinformation affected the outcome of our federal election. It was a reminder that we live in an age of misinformation. In a world fuelled by AI and bots, we can no longer believe things we see with our own eyes. (The offensive AI -generated picture of a major political figure as the Pope that circulated earlier this week immediately leaps to mind.)  

Interestingly the poll revealed that younger voters were more likely to say misinformation affected the election result than older people. Is that because we “older folk” tend to get our news from more traditional sources? Or possibly our life experience makes us more likely to question things that don’t make sense? Or maybe we’re just more trusting of our institutions and fellow citizens?

We must learn to separate truth from fabrication

Thinking about this brought to mind a post I wrote about a year ago for Wise & Shine about the dangers of health misinformation and how we can protect ourselves. Many of the tips I shared In that post apply equally to politics and other areas where misinformation is rampant.

I still believe the best way to protect ourselves against misinformation is to stop and think. We need to get into the habit of slowing down and asking, “Does this make sense?” Then, we need to follow through and do our homework using credible sources. And we need to do all that BEFORE reacting and sharing the lies.

People who spread misinformation are depending on us accepting their lies at face value. They want to incite an emotional reaction. And if we react, they win.  

Back to our federal election, I found it telling that those who voted for the party that I believe spread the most misinformation during the campaign were least likely to trust the election results. It’s a sad commentary on the state of our world.

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Three highlights of the week

It’s important to celebrate big milestones and simple pleasures in life. Keeping the trend going, here are three highlights and simple pleasures of the week gone by:

• This week, I enjoyed the first locally-grown asparagus of the season! It was so yummy.
• I used some overripe bananas to make homemade banana bread from a healthy recipe I found on Pinterest. It was delicious.
• On Friday, we went shopping at Costco’s garden centre where we got some beautiful hanging baskets and hydrangea pots for the garden. And since we were there around lunch time, I had a hot dog for lunch. Who can resist a Costco $1.50 hot dog deal?

Things I learned this week

Life is all about learning. Here are three things I learned this week:

Longest papal conclave

This week’s papal conclave made news headlines around the world. Relatively speaking, it was a short one—taking less than 24 hours to elect Pope Leo XIV on the 4^th ballot.

The longest papal conclave lasted nearly three years from November 1268 to September 1271! Pope Gregory X was eventually elected after frustrated citizens locked the cardinals in the room and restricted them to one meal a day until they reached a decision. Interestingly, that’s where the term conclave—meaning under lock and key—originated.  

(Source: AP News)

Wales prioritizes the wellbeing of future generations

In last week’s Sunday Spark, I wrote about the Indigenous Peoples’ view that land is borrowed from future generations. On a similar note, I learned this week that Wales has a law that requires all public bodies to consider the long-term impacts of policy decisions—a refreshing change from governments that insist on short-term thinking.

The Wellbeing of Future Generations act was introduced in 2015. Its seven principles include things like health, equality, prosperity and resilience. Although much progress has been made, the 10th anniversary report indicates a need for policymakers to move faster and go further.

(Source: The Progress Playbook)

Foods to nourish your eyes

We often hear that carrots are good for our eyes, but an article I read this week revealed seven foods with properties that can nourish our eyes. Here they are: kiwi, oysters, eggs, butternut squash, red peppers, wheat germ, and turkey. Not a carrot in sight!

(Source: Everything Zoomer)

This week’s simple living challenge – Price matching apps

Simplifying life is a big part of living more intentionally. With that in mind, I kicked off the year with 52 ways to simplify your life this year, including a downloadable checklist of weekly tasks.

This week’s challenge is to save time and money at the supermarket by using a price matching app like Rebee. If your grocery store offers price matching, this is a terrific way to reduce the cost of your weekly  shopping trip. And it will save you time from visiting multiple stores to save money on specials.

I’d love to hear what you think about any of this week’s topics. Drop me a comment below and let me know your thoughts and ideas.