FROM THE EDITOR

You are probably reading this editor’s letter in the deep chill of January. That means your bank account will be in a state of post-traumatic stress, your body will be yearning for the vital-organenhancing vitamins and minerals you have expertly swerved since 1st December, while your mind will be frantically trying to CALM DOWN! That means pretty soon thoughts will turn to the year ahead. You will think about what you need. What you really need. And the answer you’ll all stumble upon is… balance. “Ah, yes, balance…” you will think to yourself, “I forgot about that.” Yin and yang. The art of equilibrium. Stopping at a second drink rather than at the point when the world turns sepia and you start flirting with your Uber driver. And so you will sign yourself up for a yoga class, order a book from Amazon that looks vaguely self-carey and practise some deep breathing at the bus stop. And yet… Your social feeds will stay filled with those whose tastes and world views mirror your own. Your friendship circle will remain just that – a loop-back continuum where the same behaviours and beliefs go round and round – rarely allowing a break for alternative thought. And you will continue to source your information from the internet – a vast and wonderful place, without question, but one where predictive search and algorithms more often than not confirm our own biases rather than challenge them. Magazines, then, become a rare source of discovery, a place where, if the job is done correctly, mindsets are rattled rather than assuaged. The beauty of magazines has always been that they are an unexpected odyssey. Turn the page and who knows what you might discover? Our job is to reflect the world around us, sure, but it is also to help you question that world, too. One of the things I am most proud of about Cosmopolitan magazine is that we explore everything from a variety of angles. Balance is our mantra. A shouty headline may draw you in (for the role of editor is both truth-finder and seducer of interest), but it is also to lead you from the first line to the last. What happens in between them is up to you. Because all stories, if you read them to the end, should challenge thought. All stories should have the power to change opinion. All journalism, if presented correctly, should open up you, the reader, to the fact that there are two sides (and sometimes three or four) to every story. It is a magical process… that only works if you go in with one thing: an open mind. So the phrase “great minds think alike” is, of course, not true. Because the truth is great minds rarely think alike. Perhaps what we should be aiming for instead is not a great mind but an open one – one that offers a passageway through which different voices and ideas can travel. An open mind allows you to decide which are worth spending time with. And decide which to send on their merry way. But the point is you listened to them all. Now that is true balance.

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