I fully understand the importance of being informed (this is Buddhism after all), but unfortunately many of us choose the wrong information sources and become over whelmed or make brass decisions that offer little good for anyone. For some people, the daily news is still the main source of distraction. You might know the feeling, when you work on something, but then you just want to quickly check your favorite news site to see if there might be something new, something really important that happened.
Well, there’s a psychological reason why news is so addictive. It’s also one of the reasons why email is so addictive and why slot machines in a casino are as well. Every time you visit a news site, refresh your email or push the spin button on a slot machine, you get a thrill, a feeling of excitement for what will land on your screen. What will show up on your screen next? It might be nothing. No jackpot. No new mail. No news. It might be at least something. A spammy email. A small accident on a road near you. Or it might be something big. Jackpot. An email from your boss offering you a raise. Aliens discovered. Facing the unknown from a safe place on your couch gives you an addictive thrill.
You’re not missing out on anything. Except in some very exceptional cases.
News is history. It already happened. You have almost zero influence on it. The quality of reporting is always questionable. Information in the news is more or less only negative. You don’t want to feed your mind with negative things. You can’t live a positive life with a negative mind. And at the end of the day, the most important news will somehow get to you, through small talk with other people, big public announcements or merely by crossing a newsstand. I haven’t read news for years and I still know about all the major events that happened across the world.In fact its quite hard to NOT know these days.
Remember, if you want to co-create the future, you need to empty your mind, clear your schedule, and focus on your own visions and goals. You have to feed your mind with creative and useful things. You should make your own news, you should work so well that nobody can’t ignore you, not even the media. That should be your productivity goal. And checking a news site every hour or so gets in the way of you becoming the main success news. So, unsubscribe from all daily media newsletters. Cancel any subscription to print daily news. Block news sites in your browser. Don’t watch the evening news on the TV. You won’t miss anything, I promise.
The world will keep on spinning and you’ll only have more time to work on the valuable things in your life.
Peace and Love, Jim
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