login to bmindful Sign up for your FREE bmindful account!

To get the most out of the bmindful forum, please sign up or log in!

★Nothing Changes

Many people will tell you it doesn´t matter how well-informed you are. You can´t do anything about it anyway,’ goes the refrain, so why bother to find out about things? Here´s a newspaper editorial that sums up this attitude:

The world is too big for us. Too much going on, too much crime, violence and change. Try as you will, you get behind in the race. It´s an incessant strain to keep pace and still you lose ground. Science empties its discoveries on you so fast that you stagger beneath them in hopeless bewilderment. Everything in business and life is high pressure. Human nature can´t endure much more!

This newspaper editorial reads as if it were written last week. But it actually appeared more than 168 years ago on June 16, 1833 in The Atlantic Journal back in the “good old days!”

This is reproduced in part from the Denis Waitley Ezine www.DenisWaitley.com

“When you have the courage to step outside your comfort zone, life will never be the same again!”

if the writer of that excerpt was beamed 168 years into the future he would probably have a nervous breakdown.

the attitude is absolutely true if you believe it to be so; but the more informed you become (as long as you are educating yourself in the right fields like personal development) the more you come to realise that the belief is merely limiting.

i believe the job of todays mass media is to placate the masses by creating a culture of fear and enforcing an herd animal mentality; you see it in the spectator society that we have become – we are all too happy to watch celebrities strutt their stuff on the teevee for hours on end while completey neglecting to create our own lives by following our own passions and dreams

everyone has become so preoccupied with living up to societies ridiculous expectations (buying “cool” clothes, having a trophy boyfriend / girlfriend to “complete” you, getting fast car or three story house or whatever other bullshit measure of success our consumeristic society places upon us) that we have forgotten what really matters.

if we believe in everything baby fed to us through social conditioning then yes the world is a very large and scary place but its not impossible to shake of these limiting beliefs – just turn off the TV! :P

we are all powerful beyond our wildest dreams if only we follow our purpose and passion in life and look out for those less fortunate than ourselves.

I think you digressed a bit there with your response se da luz, but I have to say that I totally agree with your comments about the media – one of my pet hates!!

If an alien was to land & switch on the TV or pick up the newspaper, he/she/it would think that the world was a totally unsafe violence ridden place, about to self destruct from a lack of care from a sociecty obsessed with selfish consumerism.

Like you say, if that’s what you look for & focus on, that’s what you’ll get. Personally, I think it’s a pretty good place to be & I’m pretty happy to stick around & enjoy life for a lot longer yet!

“When you have the courage to step outside your comfort zone, life will never be the same again!”

i have a talent for going on tangents… ;)

referring back to your original post mufc, I think people choose the sheltered life these days to move away from the bombardment that is expresses in the editorial. For instance, people flick to the sports of celebrity section of the newspaper and omit the rest of the information they could seek ( however bias, se da luz) Thats just one example.
So even though we’re “falling behind in the race” I think most of the general population make a choice to be there, disappointing as that may be

I haven’t had a TV plugged into my house for the last 20 years. Since I left home.

When I’m tired, I can get overloaded with stimuli. Then I can’t think straight and I get stressed and emotional. That’s how I feel at the end of the day of being in Sydney… waiting at Central station for the train home. It’s too much!

At least I don’t live in it – I only go to Sydney about once a month to meet clients.

Focus

in your case Freygan your selectiveness is probably a good thing. For many people however they don’t balance it out by being informed in other areas, which makes the ability to hide away, so to speak, … less advantageous (?) for us all.

No tv in our house either :)

Freygan and Melt86 -no tv, really?

I AM
Peaceful:
Emotions, Sensations ,
& Feelings

Yes, no TV :)

I don’t watch many movies either… if I do, they’re usually really good ones cos I am selective.

Focus

Selfcare , I’m Mel’s SO and can confirm that there’s no TV at our place :)

Well actually, that’s not strictly true.

There is a tiny TV in our bedroom but it’s not plugged in and the only reason it’s tuned in is because Mel was on the news a while back (Talking about Children’s immune systems) and I tuned it in to watch it. Other than that I can honestly say I don’t think we’ve used it in years because it’s smaller than my computer monitor lol

We do watch movies though (on my computer) and have been known to become addicted to certain shows which we hire out or download.

“How easy it is in our life, to miss what’s being offered.” — Paul Haller

Wow! I have to admit as a release—there are tv shows I watch weekly..not many—but there are. TV is defintely not as good as it used to be..and there are so many repeats! But I still include it as a past time.

Since everyone lives in different places—Im not sure which movies are out that we’d all know. Do you have some favorite actors or types of movies?

I have to tell you—part of me is impressed that you don’t watch tv—Another part wonders what you like to do to that is mindless to unwind from the work-world.

I know reading and writing is big on your list…What else—as far as a passive past-time—Music? Really want to know—if you’d all like to share.

I AM
Peaceful:
Emotions, Sensations ,
& Feelings

I do a hellavalot of gardening. LOVE watching things grow.

I also play lots of music – I play violin and shakuhachi.

I work from home.

I homeschool my seven year old son. I taught him algebra this week.

I travel around Australia quite frequently, going to Tasmania in Jan/Feb to Rainbow and live in my tipi.

I have dreads so I spend heaps of time maintaining them LOL!!!

I also do lots of housework, cooking from scratch, the takeaway is crap and the restaurants are expensive!

I WISH I HAD MORE TIME!!! I want to do more. Lots more. If I watched TV, I wouldn’t be able to do all this. Really.

Focus

i stopped watching TV when i was traveling overseas, when i came back to australia my reverse culture shock was so hard everything on TV revolted me especially the bombardment of adds and now i watch maybe an hour or two a week of documentaries i find interesting.

if you stop watching TV you will be surprised at how many hours in the day, you become bored and restless after a while but if you stick at it eventually you find more rewarding things to take up your time.

i don’t think there is anythign bad with watching two or three of your favorite shows a week, but when you sit down in front of the TV after work (i used to be notorious at this) and just watch hours and hours of crap because there is nothign really on so you just flick between channels because you don’t have the energy to do anything wothwhile – thats when you know you have a problem

the problem is hundreds of millions of people in the western world have an huge problem with pissing their life away in front of the idiot box :/

I think the worst thing about TV is the ads. LIke many of you have said there are a few shows or docos that capture our interests and it is often eye-opening or thought provoking to have this kind of stimulus. The medium of the tv also allows this stimulus to be interpreted by your brain in a certain way; while watching you are usually quite passive and relaxed unlike studying (stress and anxiety as you push yourself to remember). So the info in a doco might be absorbed much better than reading about the same thing, just an example.

Ads are shockers though and I’d like to remove myself (and my wallet!) from the marketers eyes as much as possible!

In response to mufc’s post:
I was looking at the article, and as much as things have changed, and they have;I am amazed how it is consistent how powerless we feel.

I AM
Peaceful:
Emotions, Sensations ,
& Feelings

I just wanted to say I feel happy for you people that don’t watch TV. I don’t watch much and could quite easily live without, but my husband is the opposite of me and wants to buy a bloody big flatscreen! Oh well I just have to try and remember the things I do like about him, we all have faults, but mine aren’t so expensive. So my kids always want to be zombies in front of the TV too which drives me mad. I try to ban it during the week before & after school and they really are so much better without it, but often wars start when I get on my NO TV RANT. I read about a lady who recently CUT THE CORD and I would love to do the same.

Hmmmphf I’m not sounding too positive today am I?

“Even if you’re on the right track – you’ll get run over if you just sit there” Will Rogers

This seems to have turned into a thread about tv watching. I rarely turn mine on and really only have it there to selectively keep informed about things I wish to know about. I find my life much less stressful when not bombarded with talk and pictures of war, murder etc. I also use it to watch dvds that I have chosen. There are some good documentaries sometimes but overall most tv is mindless c**p.
se da luz – I also have a talent for going off on a tangent!!!

I dont watch much TV either apart from ones where people get makeovers or about buying houses and other factual stuff. I dont like the so called reality shows either, I was talking with colleagues about a certain show one of the had seen and she explained a situation that had happend in it and how it might come across to the viewers. I told them Id come to the conclusion that programme makers only show what they want you to see. It seems to me that dramas and soaps are more honest than reality TV at least we know theyre make believe. Oh yes there is a soap opera I watch too Called Coronation Street :)

enjoy life!

Bookmark 

I AM
Peaceful:
Emotions, Sensations ,
& Feelings

Jump to Top ^^

To get the most out of the bmindful forum, please sign up or log in!

Related Content