“A man’s mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind.”

I’m a ravenous consumer of content. I bet you are, too. If we are what we eat, for better or worse, the content we consume becomes our reality. It becomes the story we tell ourselves, the principles we believe in, and it may even determine our health. Some content is detrimental and some is beneficial. Because we’re bombarded with information from every direction, it’s never been more important to carefully curate what we consume.

Practically everything we observe and experience now seems to be “content.” From music, movies, books, news, politics, gossip, work, friend feeds and texts, even to our immediate surroundings like how our homes are decorated.  Sometimes the noise and choices can get overwhelming. This overload is like decision fatigue.

Steve Jobs popularized the idea of “decision fatigue” when he chose to wear the same outfit of clothing every day to eliminate wardrobe decisions from his daily decision bank.  Decision fatigue describes when we make too many decisions in too short a time, we significantly reduce our decision-making ability.

The video below is an excellent explanation of decision fatigue and its potential effects:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9Fo3PJQYfc?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent]

Some common effects from decision fatigue are losing self-control over things you normally refrain from doing, decision paralysis, or beginning to avoid making decisions altogether. Significantly, life starts happening to you instead of for you. High performers like Steve Jobs require life to happen for them, not to them.

Often we’re tempted by the emotional clickbait headlines without considering the consequences on our psyche. There are some things we cannot unsee or unhear. Words and images affect us. They mold our reality. We have to ask ourselves if we really want to manufacture more rage in our lives. Rarely do we stop to deliberately protect ourselves from the content we consume.

But like the James Allen quote above says, the mind will grow harmful weeds if not deliberately cultivated. These weeds can be damaging. They seem to manifest as stress or anxiety which can lead to a host of mental and physical ailments. And much like decision fatigue, we seem to lose room for critical thought and productive ideas to blossom.

For me the flood of content I was consuming caused me anxiety. I was in my mad-as-hell stage of awakening and I was rabidly rage-clicking on endless reels of content that confirmed my rage. I thought being awake meant “if you aren’t angry, you aren’t paying attention.” But I was wrong.

Then I had a simple epiphany: the best way to better the world around me is to better myself. I was responsible for the content I consumed and how it made me feel. I realized that I was planting the wrong seeds in my mind and they were producing choking weeds. The rage I felt toward the machine dramatically subsided.

As a Man Thinketh was instrumental in shaping this epiphany. Listen to it for free below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn_eg3xDp8s?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent]

Upon focusing my thoughts to more fruitful purposes, my life started getting better. Suddenly it made sense that this strategy, individually, would be far more effective activism than merely raging against the machine.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s healthy to be angry at the right things. But when we’re experiencing information overload, it’s all too easy to become angry over trivial differences in tribalism, for example.

So the next time you catch yourself tempted to click on “rage clickbait,” ask yourself if that’s the type of garden you want to cultivate in your mind. Does rage make your life better? What will?

Now you’re awake.

 

Source: http://www.shift.is/2017/03/content-consume-becomes-reality/

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Disclaimer: We at Prepare for Change (PFC) bring you information that is not offered by the mainstream news, and therefore may seem controversial. The opinions, views, statements, and/or information we present are not necessarily promoted, endorsed, espoused, or agreed to by Prepare for Change, its leadership Council, members, those who work with PFC, or those who read its content. However, they are hopefully provocative. Please use discernment! Use logical thinking, your own intuition and your own connection with Source, Spirit and Natural Laws to help you determine what is true and what is not. By sharing information and seeding dialogue, it is our goal to raise consciousness and awareness of higher truths to free us from enslavement of the matrix in this material realm.

2 COMMENTS

  1. lol I’ve been so awake last week, that I need a break right now. This Sunday was a day of leisure and slowing down, so that I had a proper look at where I am. Decision fatigue, that’s it, thank you. lol.
    After a lot of pondering and wondering, it’s been a valuable reflecting on how I use my energy and sort out my priorities, while looking for a spare room in Devon UK.

    I’ve been awake for landlords and landladies, with whom I’ve arranged viewings of their homes for a spare room, these last 8 months and by asking questions and pointing at conflicting interests with diplomacy, coming to a point where identifying the situation and condition at present, was one thing, offering clarity to them, but a positive result in finding a living space seems to be a different cup of tea!

    Help! I’ve discovered that I chose the wrong strategy. My assistance in discussions with those people hasn’t shown me progress at all, apart from exploring many areas in Devon, while trying to find a comfortable home with a spare room. My preference is Dartmoor or the South Devon seaside.

    I’ve written some notes and questions for myself, finding clarity and answers. Finding a new approach. From now on I’m not going to make efforts to do the homework for landlords and landladies, I’m going to sift their offers based on the fact that they’ve done that homework, before publishing their advert.

    I expect them to show me a substantial offer, a contract draft on the table during our interview and a summary of conditions and rules in the home, based on experience and the use of common sense.
    Based on respect for privacy and freedom of expression within boundaries and awareness of assumptions that may be wrong.

    The dance in a home with others doesn’t require a fixed set of steps, or rythm, it needs an agility of footing, as I perceive it. Being sensitive to energies and being perceptive is a blessing and a curse, depending on if I’m in the company of kindred spirits and companions with an open mind, used to thinking out of the box.

    Each day is a new day with surprises and magical moments of silence, of just being. When the care for oneself equals the care for a home, a garden and pets, it’s a condition where I’d love to share a home, working on the art of care in a most natural way, at ease and pleased with myself in my first year of retirement.

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