How The Radio & Television News Pollutes Your Mind & Your Life – Vol. 378, September 8, 2016

 So I am at work, feeling rather well, and listening to the radio station WBVF, working away.

They have contests every once in a while, where they have contestants call in.

 This morning the question was: Which has the highest odds of your being killed by: Being hit by lightening or killed on an amusement park ride? Being killed in an airplane or hit crossing the street? And the questions just went on like that for about 10 questions! 

 Then… I went to break, was just glancing at the Boston Globe, and the insert for Macy’s department store. In there was an ad for tee shirts. One had the saying on it  “shhhhh, nobody cares”

 The television was on and tuned into CNN news, giving all the worlds depressing news.

 So, now I just want to go home and am feeling depressed.

 Wonder why that is?  !!!!!

I don’t even feel like working!

 I think they should play Ellen Degeneres all the time, with Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny cartoons in between.  

The above day’s musings were inside an email form Donna N.  A past client and now contributor of ideas and blog posts to the DVH, Inc weblog.

So, my question is: Why is it  that we can never get away from the endless stream of sensationalized news that is broadcast, sometimes vey loudly, making it more invasive then it already is? Why is it that when I want to go for an evening with some friends, that televisions are blaring from all over the restaurant? Or, worse, why is there sometimes a television or… two…. or three running all around the room while a radio is blaring out loud music?

I don’t get what it is about this country that noise has to be everywhere people go to be with one another. It’s a travesty. I for one would prefer a quiet space in where I can talk to my friends without having to yell above all the mayhem!

Most of the millionaires that I follow regularly on the internet, who get paid to speak from the stage, will tell you that the first thing that they make sure happens in their lives, is to no longer watch or listen to the news. First, it takes a lot of time away from more productive and fulfilling endeavors. Second, it hijacks your life by leaving one feeling depressed and anxious, just as Donna related about her experience above.

It is my belief that we have this infortainment news these days to both dumb down our society and to bring the population’s anxiety to a very high level. I realized this happened around the time Walter Cronkite went off the air in 1981. It intensified as our government got our country militarily involved in countries we had no place in going. One cannot solve a civil war for another country – witness Viet Nam and many other horrible situations since. One can’t push democratic ideals on peoples who live tribal lives, nor should we. And, yet our government is always pushing its way into the lands of others, stealing the precious resources while pretending to give a damn about the citizens of these countries. One gets a better idea of the truth behind this statement if one travels to foreign lands to witness the absurdity.

In the mean time the Kardashian’s are thrown at you everywhere you turn as if they have done a damn thing to merit all this attention lavished on them, never mind the sick amounts of money they earn for their dysfunctional life style.  Just the sort of role models I want for my younger relatives… not.

I don’t own a television and don’t want one. I can find all the news I desire to read or hear about on my cell phone or i-pad looking more for ideas that have to do with making the world better for our having been here. There are plenty of people doing amazingly positive things both here in the United States and abroad, and it is those things that I want to be educated about. Organizations like Pencils of Promise, that builds schools in Africa for one. Or, the community organization that I volunteer in to prevent teen drug addiction. Because in the end, what is a life that is filled with superficial bullshit, sensationalize garbage and meaningless tidbits? Sadly, this is what brings the world to the place we are now at with most people so overly medicated for illnesses they don’t even have – being sad, is not the equivalent to being depressed. Worrying about something for appropriate reasons does not mean you have an anxiety disorder, and keeping your things overly tidy doesn’t mean you have OCD. Just like self-medication does not always equate to addiction. We need to get real and help our citizenry, especially our kids, learn how to regulate their own emotions, learn the difference between those normal human emotions and dysfunctional emotions.

I believe that if we had a world where beautiful music were played, comedies that weren’t filled with the anger of sarcasm, interesting things learned from nature and science on the television, maybe we would have many more functional and happy people on this planet, especially here in the United States. This is the place where things are massively less expensive then almost anywhere else, with the exception of those soul killing, emotionally deadening, mentally disabling, bodily destructive drugs handed out like candy these days.

Turn off your television and go out and get some fresh air instead. Have an interesting conversation with someone you enjoy being with. Play a game of tennis, or some other sport with your friends. Take a lovely bike ride somewhere beautiful, or how about a walk along the beach, especially at dusk as the sun is setting.

There are so many things we can do to engage in our lives. That is my suggestion to you now. Go and engage in something that will bring you solace, excitement joy and maybe even perhaps a feeling of love. I can promise you that being without your television for a very short period of time will allow you to notice how wonderful life can be when we choose what we want to spend our limited time doing, instead of falling for the status quo.