Dear friends,
We experience negative influences almost every day of our lives, right from when we are children. Throughout our formative years we were told "No" or "You cannot do that" or "You cannot have that" many thousands of times. We are lectured about the evils in our world and many negative aspects of life are constantly being reinforced at school and at home.
It's no wonder that by the time we reach adulthood, we tend to lean towards the negative rather than towards the positive. There are some exceptions of course - but for the most part, we can expect to experience considerably more negative external influences than positive external influences in our lives.
Once we reach our adult years, most of us will read newspapers, watch television news and listen to the radio. We will mostly hear about war, famine, murder and all sorts of crime and violence. It would be silly to ignore these things as this is the world that we live in and we wouldn't want to pretend we were in some sort of "positive fantasy land". However, we do have control over how these negative influences affect us and how often we expose ourselves to them.
Have you ever noticed how one person will be visibly distressed to hear that a flood in some foreign country has caused several hundred deaths, while another person won't react at all?
It all comes down to how we process the information when we hear about the event or disaster. Certainly we should have sympathy for the people who have lost their lives or their families, but if we can't have a direct effect on the plight of those people then the most we will get from any deep thought will probably be despair and cynicism. We shouldn't spend too much time worrying about things that we have no control over.
That may sound a little cold, and there are exceptions such as having direct family who are fighting in a war, or being directly involved in a foreign aid organisation. But the reality for most of us is that you can spend so much time worrying about everything that is going on in the rest of the world to the point that it can have quite a devastating affect on you and your family - yet there is little you can do to fix or change anything. You have control over Your World - you don't have control over an event that happened in South America or Europe.
It is right to be caring and compassionate, but it also make sense to care for yourself, your family and friends as these are the people that you do have the power to influence in many positive ways. Spending an hour with your family instead of reading the newspaper or watching the television news can have a major effect on everyone involved. Walking the dog instead of reading the latest celebrity magazine will be much better for your health - both physically and mentally.
Try it some time. Completely remove all television radio and printed news from your life for a few weeks and see how much clearer and more positive your mind and your general outlook on life is.
This Sounds Too Good To Be True!
To Your Success,
Tony Chai
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