For decades now, the film industry has unabashedly and proudly pronounced its goal and proclaimed its role to break down all barriers, cross all lines, and destroy all boundaries. A rated R movie in the seventies had the word, “Damn,” suggestions of sexual content, and maybe a fist fight. Wow, how things have changed. And now, with most children owning a smart phone, an iPad, or a computer, access to the internet is commonplace. Access to absolutely anything they want to now view, listen to, or expose themselves to, is easy. It is now considered normal for anyone of any age to have unlimited access. Pornography, cyber-bullying, sexting, negativity, and darkness are filling the once innocent minds of our beloved young ones and the results are staggering.
In 2018, one in 6 adults had taken, or was currently taking, prescribed medications for depression or anxiety. Depression, anxiety, and even suicide attempts, among teens, have become a normal thing. Something is affecting our kids and impacting them in a negative way. I love how Jay Shetty explains it: Today, because of social media, news outlets, and the internet, we are now exposed to more pain in one day than our ancestors were exposed to in a lifetime.
Today’s generation is all about asking the question, “How much of a bad thing can I inject into my life and get away with it and still be, ‘okay’?” How much violence is too much to view before it stops being entertaining and becomes a daily part of our lives? At what point does it take over our own emotional state and affect us in all of the small decisions we make throughout the day? How much porn can we watch before it stops being exciting and enticing and has a negative impact in our personal lives and in our relationships? How much sugar and how many carbs and junk food can we ingest before it stops being enjoyable and becomes dangerous, causing diseases of all kinds? How often can we take certain, illegal drugs, or how much alcohol can we drink, before it stops being fun and enjoyable and starts to become harmful to ourselves and others?
Why do we insist on taking things right up to the edge? Is it to see how much we can bend, before we break? Does the enjoyable become an addiction because it distracts us from pain or suffering? Why do we insist on pushing the limits to the maximum and beyond?
I think a good alternative would be to start asking the questions, “How much of a good thing can I inject into my life and get away with it? How much can my mindset, health, and life improve? What contributions to others can I make and what value can I add to the world if I become the absolute best version of myself that I can be each day? What can I do all day, every day, in order to enjoy the most meaningful, fulfilling, purpose-filled, and beautiful life possible, filled with light, joy, and love?”
The question, “How can I become a better __________________?” is a question introduced by Marshall Goldsmith. His content is worth diving into.
A slight change in the questions we ask ourselves has the ability to alter our minds, our focus, our lives, and our realities, completely altering the trajectory of our destinies, and what we are able to project and inject into our personal realities. WE are in charge of these things, unless we continue to give away our power to the entertainment industry, the advertising industry, Big Pharma, and others, who may not always have our best interest at heart.
What will you choose to focus on today? How much good can be injected into life, in place of how much crap has been injected? Through the law of displacement, how long will it take us to replace the one with the other?
Imagine this magic trick: A magician is on a large stage. Next to him is his beautiful assistant, who he is going to place into a square, clear, 1000-gallon container, filled with a black substance. She is hooked onto a harness, attached to a rope, which the magician can control with ease through the help of a pulley system. The magician dips the beautiful assistant who is dressed in white, hair and makeup perfectly done, into the substance, then pulls her back out. Her once white, beautiful outfit is now completely black, and as he slowly pulls her back out, the black substance slowly oozes and drips off of her once beautiful body. The audience gasps in disgust. Now for the magical part:
The magician has a huge hose lowered from above into the container. It is secured to the container so that when it is turned on full-blast it won’t detach. The eyes of the audience widen with awe at the pressure and force as the hose is turned on. The large hose shoots water into the darkness, displacing and replacing the thick, black substance. The ooze spills out over the top of the container and onto the stage. It begins to spread everywhere and spill over the edges of the stage and into the audience. The people below barely notice as they watch, intently, while the container on the stage quickly becomes completely clear!
Every few moments, the black ooze drips from the assistant, who is still perched above the container. As it drips into the container, the darkness is immediately shot out of the container because of the pressure of the water hose. Once the container is clear for a good 15 seconds, the magician signals to have the water turned off. The audience is silent, engaged, and wide-eyed. Another large drop of the dark ooze drips from off of the once beautiful assistant and falls into the water, immediately making the water dark as the black ooze contaminates it. Members of the audience gasp, amazed at how the perfectly clear, clean, crisp water, is so quickly darkened. The magician lowers the assistant into the water and everyone is amazed by the disgusting, dirty, unclean water within the container, that only seconds ago was so clean and pure.
The water is again turned on. Members of the audience worry for the assistant because of the water pressure, but can soon see how quickly she, and the container, are washed clean and pure from the dark, black, ugly, ooze. The container is clean once more. The water is turned off. The assistant is beautiful again, once more adorned in a pure white, beautiful, costume. As she is slowly pulled by the rope out of the pristine water, the magician explains that the container is like the mind of society, and once enough pressure is used to pump in clean, pure, helpful, beneficial, content into the dark, goopy, unclean, ooze, magic will happen. The darkness will be displaced and replaced with clarity, light, love, and clean, pureness. He goes on to explain that content we put into the hose, and the pressure or intensity with which we pump that content into the container, is what will ultimately matter more than anything else.
The content we choose to allow into our minds, and focus on throughout the day, and the intensity we choose to live with as we focus, and refocus, upon the content of our own choosing, will determine the quality of our minds. The quality of our minds will determine the quality of our lives.
WE WILL ALWAYS FIND WHAT WE TRULY SEEK.
Today, I will pay particular attention to my thoughts, and where they come from. I will pay attention to the content I am allowing into my mind, and if I feel the need, I will take back control of my mind, and I will take back the power I have given away, by improving the content I choose. Today, and every day from now on, I will BOMBARD MY BRAIN, in order to displace the dark with the light, the bad with the good, and the weakness with strength.
The most helpful, life-changing, empowering content I have ever come across in my life, so far, has been from the YouTube shows IMPACT THEORY, HEALTH THEORY, WOMEN OF IMPACT, THE LEWIS HOWES SHOW, THE ED MYLETT SHOW, and ANY content by TONY ROBBINS, GREGG BRADEN, JOE DISPENZA, BRUCE LIPTON, WAYNE DYER, and RAM DASS, on the BE HERE NOW NETWORK. Old recordings by Jim Rohn, Earl Nightingale, and John Earl Shoaff are something I listen to daily, in order to constantly reprogram my mind to think the way that I want it to, rather than allowing others to think FOR me, after years of allowing my subconscious mind to be automatically programmed through television and radio advertisements.
Ask yourself this question: DO I WANT THE RED PILL, OR THE BLUE PILL?
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Remember: Mindset matters. Character counts. That which we choose to consistently focus on is what EXPANDS in our lives. WE CREATE our realities.