It’s Your World, So Be Aware — Jack’s Words of Widsom

The last few weeks have given us a whirlwind of headlines. My Twitter feed exploded with the news of Kim Kardashian's 5-weeks-premature labor, and it went absolutely nuclear with criticism of the alleged name of her child. And while the thought of a child named North West perplexed me, I found myself not caring what my favorite rapper and his baby's mother did with the child they conceived.

I'm your typical 20something. I recently graduated college, I enjoy free time to catch up with old friends, and I'm as nostalgic and stubborn as anybody else my age. Growing up, I would watch the morning and evening news every day and night without my parents ever asking me to, and I never knew why. Even after I moved away to college, I always made it a point to check the local news from my hometown every chance I could.

This is why the last couple of weeks have forced me to roll my eyes at every other "original" North West joke on Twitter, the coverage of Nik Wallenda's canyon walk and gossip headlines about who's fighting with whom.

I can't stress enough how important it is to pay attention to current events. Every day, we witness history being made. DOMA was just repealed, the immigration laws in the U.S. are drastically changing for the first time in decades, and in the last month the people of Turkey, Brazil and Egypt have been protesting.

Hard-hitting news is a bitter pill to swallow sometimes because it makes us see the faults in the world, and sometimes we're not ready or willing to face that. The importance in knowing what's going in the world, or at least your community, lies in the role you play in your community. We enjoy complaining about things we don't like in our neighborhoods or about our government, and while the federal government might be a little harder to reach and change, it still is changing. This means you have all the capacity to make your neighborhoods better, but that all starts with knowledge.

Take the time out of your day to read your local newspaper before you dive into the entertainment news. If there is something happening, there's always somewhere to find out the cause and effect of it (the internet is a beautiful thing when it wants to be), so make the effort.

The Kardashians don't care about businesses, policies and problems going on in your neighborhoods -- and even if they did, what could they do to change it that you couldn't?

Have a silly or embarrassing story you want to share with readers? Email your stories to angela.stefano@townsquaremedia.com, and you could be featured in Jack’s Words of Wisdom!