Television
In todays society we work and we come home and turn on the TV. This is a way to forget about the stresses of the day and float off into a TV show for a couple of hours before bed. This habit of TV watching is not good and needs to be stopped now. Not only does it overstimulate the brain with fast paced programs, but if your distracting yourself with programs when you have other stresses you need to deal with, well, you are just putting fuel onto the fire which is your anxiety.
“The remarkable thing about television is that it permits several million people to laugh at the same joke and still feel lonely.” – T.S. Eliot
Television is just crap. The programs that we watch are rarely positive. The thrillers, dramas and even comedy shows all contain series issues that promote stress and anxiety in us. Even the commercials, which is the worst part of it, are designed to catch you in your unconscious and stressful state. Commercials try to sell things to you that you don’t need, manipulate your belief system and even get you scared of an illness that you don’t have but might end up getting in the future.
I found that when I stopped watching Netflix and TV altogether, except for the Blue Jays because I love baseball, I had more time to read, write and get in touch with mother nature. I remember the many years of watching hundreds of shows that I can’t even remember and spending mindless hours on programs that I didn’t really enjoy so much. Choose what actually benefits your life in a positive and constructive way. Thats why I stopped watching Netflix and cable, and chose to only watch baseball and movies. I am a huge movie lover but I don’t watch them often. It would be like a reward for me. When I go to the movie theatre, I appreciate the movie more and enjoy it much more because I cut my TV watching down next to none.
The System
We are given limited information about the life we live. Our parents teach us exactly what they learned from their parents and this can limit our potential and contribute to our anxiety and how we look at life. I was told that I needed to go to school, get a job that you have to put up with, use that money for a house, go on vacations, then you die. We go to school when we are young and learn a crap load of things we do not need and will not benefit our future selves. We are not taught about how to deal with pain, loss or other important life skills. We are almost forced to decide a career right away in high school but yet no one says that they want to be happy or fulfilled when they are older. Then when I was out of film school in 2012 I was left working jobs that didn’t make me happy or fulfilled. I then ended up on movie sets with no idea of the equipment because the majority of the classes in college were complete garbage. I learned everything on the job and 85% of my time in college was pointless. Once you do and you climb that corporate ladder, will you then be fully fulfilled? No you wont. Why do you see these rich actors and celebrities with mental health issues? They have everything they want don’t they? Why do they kill themselves with alcohol and drugs? They don’t know how to be happy and fulfilled. Most of us don’t know how to be happy and fulfilled because we are not taught how to.
Then there is the pressure of finding a career and making enough money to live a certain way. This pressure contributed to my anxiety extremely. I was never taught that money doesn’t buy happiness and that when you give back to others you will be fulfilled. I was living in a rat race from day 1 and looking back at my childhood, I never enjoyed going to school, ever. I would cry every single morning when my mom would drop me off. It wasn’t a place I wanted to be. Education comes from life and experience. It does not start and stop in a classroom.
A lot of physical problems like diseases and terminal illnesses can be prevented if we just take care of our spiritual self. We get bombarded with phrases like: “life is too short” or “live while your young” that promote drug and alcohol use because what the hell, I can’t get any illness because I’m young. Why not eat all this fast food? If you don’t take care of your mental and physical self, you can develop life threatening illnesses anytime in your life.
Life won’t feel short if you meditate and get in touch with your five senses daily. It will feel more meaningful and you will be PRESENT. How can life be short if you are in the present moment daily? Question your beliefs and question the information bombarding you on a daily basis.
“Kids are swamped with homework. Im not belittling homework but if a kid is spending 6 to 7 hours at school then comes home and spends another 4 hours doing homework before going to sleep, what kind of programming do you think that person is under?” – Dennis Simsek