…And to Lead a Happier Life!
Broadcasters, TV stations and journos won’t thank me for this. Neither will the broadsheets or tabloids. Much less Twitter, which seems to constantly pip the former gaggle to the post when it comes to sensationally negative breaking stories! But it has to be said, so say it I will: being a regular viewer or listener of The News does not make for a fulfilling life.
An intellectual one, maybe…
But could there ever be a time when we are not better off by putting our own right to joy over and above the media’s incessant determination to bring us down – with the exception of the one ‘Good News Story’ they love to stick on at the end?
Like a token olive branch.
It’s not enough! And anybody with even a moderate I.Q knows, deep down, that a fifty-fifty serving of good versus evil would make for a slightly more accurate representation of world events.
There are many reasons why switching off our box and living in a bubble of optimism is a far more rewarding way to spend our time. But here are my personal 7 Reasons Not to Watch The News:
1: We are tuning into a false perception of our beloved planet Earth.
In the world that we live in, on a day-to-day basis, when we truly stop to smell the flowers and look around us, there is, in actual fact, a helluva lot of good going on.
We just need to start taking note of it.
Yes, we may well have been trained our whole lives to sniff out the bad; the wrong-doings, the cons, the disadvantages, the shady characters – in no small part thanks to said media… meaning this may initially take a little re-programming of our minds. But it is the only way to a happier existence.
We deserve better than the perception they are thrusting upon us.
2: Because ‘facts’ are often distorted.
We need look no further than the tabloids to ascertain this. Yet the same is true of the various television corporations, Twitter and the other forms of social media infiltrating our daily existence. We are quite literally spoon fed things in a way which best serves the channel through which we are choosing to be bombarded.
Think about it…
How many times have papers or news programmes received complaints… and then had to backtrack on what they have reported? How many times have there been lawsuits and closing down of media outlets over inaccurate journalism? It’s all too easy to forget this when we sit at the end of a long day like vacuum cleaners on our couches, sucking up the data and statistics and horrifying stories which are spewed out at us, then going to bed and having nightmares.
3: There are TWO sides to every story. Sometimes even THREE or FOUR!
Not only are we often receiving cunningly manipulated ‘brass tacks’, but we are also often so taken in by what we are reading or hearing, that we overlook the other side(s) of the drama. We are triggered into adopting a set viewpoint based on one way of seeing humanity. Yet, dig a little deeper, and behind every headline there are any number of sub headlines playing out a completely different, and refreshingly uplifting story.
4: The world is intrinsically full of good, but The News would have us think otherwise…
There is always more good than bad surrounding us. On balance we are a humanity of love and empathy, spiritual beings cheering one another on. But if you were an alien, somehow capable of understanding the languages of this planet, landing on Earth and firing up the TV for the first time, you’d have a somewhat different interpretation. You see that’s how ‘subtle’ the media’s effects are.
We are held captive, given a bird’s eye view of life. However, without the constant invasion of terrifying tales and scream-worthy scaremongering, we’d scarcely be able to imagine it. Because what goes on in our own neighbourhoods, on the whole, tips the scales to a largely uplifting backyard civilisation where actually, peace and happiness prevail.
5: We become more violent and depressed.
It stands to reason that when we are painted a picture of a messy, angry and broken world, it either gets us very down or very outraged. Or both. And then we set about replicating those emotions in our own lives. It’s impossible not to. We are vibrational beings and when we tune into the frequency of injustice and warfare, doom and gloom, we start to feel that way about just about everything in our own lives.
Trust me. No good at all can come from watching a report on war, the latest terrorist bombing or an Ebola outbreak.
Why?
Not because we should be uncaring and insensitive to others, but simply because the ONLY way to change the world and make it a shinier, happier place is to focus on what we, as humanity DO want. That means freedom, peace and well-being.
It is oft quoted in the world of positive mindsets, but this is the very reason that you wouldn’t get Mother Theresa standing at an anti anything rally. She knew. This figurehead for peace knew how backward and unhelpful this way of thinking was, and that the only way to progress was to turn the other cheek, to ignore the current conditions and find the solution by seeing the wanted outcome as fact.
The fight against disease, poverty and violence is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Our mass consciousness attaches itself to battling the problem and wrestling it to the ground… as opposed to being solution-oriented. And this unwittingly creates the momentum for more of the same.
When we say YES to something, the Universe delivers more of the same.
When we say NO to something, the Universe also delivers more of the same.
“You attract to you the predominant thoughts that you’re holding in your awareness, whether those thoughts are conscious or unconscious. That’s the rub.” — Michael Bernard Beckwith
This is an inclusive Universe. Every feeling and request is heard. The sooner we realise that, the sooner we can all live in the kind of peace and freedom and prosperity and justice we’ve been dreaming of.
6: We become more fearful.
Whether we are being given the heebe jeebies about a suspected terrorist plot, an outbreak of a hideous illness or an armed robber on the loose, The News hardly gives us the inner peace we deserve, not to mention the joy we should be mostly thriving on here on Earth. And this general buzz of horror slowly but very surely overlaps into so many areas of our life. How can it not?
Pam Grout sums it up so sweetly and neatly:
“If some stranger talked to us the way newscasters do, we’d tell them to go jump in a lake. Likewise, if our boyfriends made us feel the way headlines often do, our friends would line up for an intervention. ‘Toss the jerk out on his head,’ they’d say.”
You’ve gotta love this lady’s wisdom for saying it as it is!
7: LOA
Ultimately, everything on this gorgeous planet of ours boils down to LOA (aka. The Law of Attraction). And if you’ve never heard of this most glorious genie-in-a-bottle-of-a-‘phenomenon’, it’s high time you did yourself the biggest favour of your life and got to know it intimately.
The basic premise of this law, which is as total and as infallible as gravity, states that ‘like attracts like’. In other words, that which we place our attention on will manifest itself into our lives in some shape, form or way. Often as a person or group of people, a situation or condition.
It would make sense then to think about, talk about and listen to/read/watch on TV only the stuff that makes us feel good.
And if you still aren’t convinced after all of the above, promise me at the very least that you’ll cut your sensationalist viewing down just the tiniest bit. Nope, only watching the ticker tape accounts flying by on the screen doesn’t count for less viewing…!
“Maybe you have to be informed, but you don’t have to be inundated.”
James Ray
