Soft resetting the mind

Ask yourself, are all things things I think about REALLY important?

Paying attention to stuff

I follow and admire people some might call controversial, such as Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, Bret Weinstein, Sam Harris, Dave Rubin… the folks within the IDW space. I’ll save explanation and justification for that on a later date. I acknowledge that this nature of content grabs my attention more-so than others, such as dumb young college lib protesters, SJW’s getting slammed, people easily infuriated over the POTUS’ latest antics, so on so forth.

A lot of these kinds of posts on the internet regardless of whether you agree with me or not on these issues are definitely a waste of time. Just as JP would say, completely misses the point of the tenants he conveys to people. Instead of spending hours getting all worked up and reacting woke politics I see online, I have to take my own advice and put that same amount of time and energy into myself, my family, my work.

This week I drastically limited what I paid attention to save for occasional podcasts, music and contact with friends over IM and I still was completely oblivious that my city was covered in smoke that spread from Oregon and Seattle!

Moral of the story

There is a lot going on in the world right now. There is a lot going on in your life as well. What is more immediate? What is within your control?

Certainly it is the latter, but why does the former grab your attention more? We often allow whatever news or media stir negative emotions within us and that distracts us from noticing what we are actually projecting.

What we have in common is the reactionary knee jerk responses to headlines, thumbnails, things that simply enrage us. These are a distraction from the very real uncertainty of our personal challenges. Never underestimate the human tendency to focus on extraneous matters.

Dave Rubin came back after a month of forced technology, news and social media deprivation. Even for a person whose business is to follow the news and political sphere he’s done that. Coming back from that and being brought up to speed on what happened over the month demonstrated how little many things really holds bearing on us.

Just as our muscles need rest and recovery after tough exercise so do our minds. In this case it would be the break away from external stimuli that provides us little to no real value.

People think they are so important. We follow some story or people or create activity online to gain external validation that we need to be constantly engaged or worked. We never give our mind a break. Just like muscles needing to relax, so does the brain.

A soft reset of the mind

• We need to learn how to not act based on emotions, negotiate and understand ourselves firstly
• Meditations and reflective exercises on letting go of our thoughts
• Address our personal challenges one at a time: (fitness/health, mental/personal struggles, personal development matters)
• Limiting our exposure to social media especially news! Focus on what is in our control and directly influences us (Certainly right now it’s harder to distinguish, but the principle still matters)
• A general limit to information. Prior to this modern age we have never been more invested into other peoples fabricated lives so why should we continue paying attention then? Only focus on information that you need to search yourself rather than be fed through social media and continuing numbing our senses/mind
• Exercise restraint on technology usage every once in awhile: phone, PC, games, social media, alcohol, porn etc. (Bonus points on doing this for an extended period of time)