Jim Murray

6 years ago · 4 min. reading time · 0 ·

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The Pursuit of Happiness Part 2

The Pursuit of Happiness Part 2

STORIES & OPINION FROM THE QUIET SIDE OF THE LAKE

oz TILL

Fear & Loathing In Our Own Heads  This is the second in a series. Since I appear to be on some sort of transformational journey these days, I thought you might want to ride along. The ride is free. And there may be refreshments.

If you are ‘too much in this world’, as Don Henley once said, you can start to see it as a place that very much appears to be heading straight down the highway to hell.Terrorism. Unstable economies. Climate change. Wannabe dictators. Political divisiveness. Racism. Sexism. Corporate & media manipulation. Take your pick.

Our perception of all of this has a lot to do with the fact that the 24 hours news cycle and social media are pumping this crap out at an overwhelming rate, analyzing it 6 ways from Sunday and then shoving it down our throats all day and all night long.

But that’s not the real problem.

The real problem lies in the fact that many of us have become hopelessly addicted to news. And this addiction is one of the most significant ways that our capitalist economy is fed.

Here are a few examples of how it works:

The news makes us paranoid. This worry causes physical ailments, so the drug industry and the healthcare professions benefit.

The news makes us fearful, so we seek comfort in food and the junk food industry benefits.

The news makes us long for escape so the entertainment industry, the booze and the soon to be worldwide weed industries benefit. The illicit drug trade also flourishes.

The news makes us feel isolated so we make lots of friends on social media, which is one of the main news carrying entities. So the media benefits twice.

The news makes us overly cautious so the security industry benefits.

As our addiction grows, we become more easy to convince, even gullible. This, in turn, allows us to be more handily manipulated by the advertising industry and politicians.

So a whole lot of industries benefit from the fact that a war of one kind or another or some other fucking disaster, is just around the corner.

Today, fear and paranoia are the main economic drivers in our society. But what’s worse is the paradox that too many of us recognize this, but keep feeding our addiction all the same.

Many of us, (and I do include myself), have allowed ourselves to become screwed up in this way and the more screwed up we become the better it is for the economy.

The Flip Side

I wish I coud write you
A melody so plain
That could hold you dear lady
From going insane
That would ease you

And cool you,
And cease the pain
Of your useless and

Pointless knowledge...Now not everybody is hopelessly addicted, but I would estimate that the vast majority of us are at least mildly hooked.

The solution to all this starts with us. Because it’s our addiction. And nobody out there really wants us to kick it. Because they make millions off it so It’s not in their best interest.

But it is in ours.

The best way to break this cycle is to go right to the root. And the root is the news.

It’s estimated that people consume more than 2 hours of news a day, whereas back in the days before the 24-hour news cycle and the Internet, that number of somewhere in the area of half an hour or less.

So it stands to reason that the less news you consume the less you will think about and fear for the future of the world. I know this sounds like an oversimplification. And all I really have to support it is my own anecdotal evidence. But for me, it really does work.

I have started dialing back the amount of news I ingest several months ago and I am happier than I have ever been.

I'm not out of touch but I am extremely selective about where I get my information and work hard to find the more objective sources like PBS and BBC. It's not that hard to do. And the difference in your life that reducing the internal chaos imposed by external influences can make will be significant and best of all, positive.

Some Free Happiness Advice

1. Watch more flowers grow outside and fewer explosions boom on TV.

2. Spend less time with your friends on social media and more time with your 3-D friends and family.

3. Follow people who see the big picture and aren’t influenced by anything but getting you the truth. (People like Ian Bremmer of The Eurasia Group, David Axelrod, Tom Friedman, David Brooks and David Frum. Look them up, they’re easy to find.)

4. If you’re gonna binge, binge on carrots and celery, not chips and cookies.

5. Work harder to filter out the bullshit from everything you hear from a politician, marketer or talking head media type. It's not hard, cause it's mostly bullshit anyway.

6. Learn to listen to your own heart. Talk to God if you’re so inclined. Or teach yourself some rudimentary meditation techniques.

But understand that most of what's coming at you is all is engineered to make you pliant and easy to influence. Most of it is subliminal, but you can bring it to the surface and blow it out of the water. You have that power. All you have to do is make up your mind that you don’t want to live like that.

Now, this, of course, is thousand word memo to me. I actually printed this out and will keep it close by to look at every now and then, just to keep myself focused.

Being happy in this world is not rocket science. But it does require a bit of effort to locate and diminish the things that are making you unhappy.

And that’s the hard part because life is complex, and you need to know a lot of stuff in order to get through it successfully.

The trouble is that there is a ton of useless and pointless knowledge out there, and learning to sort through it is probably the hardest work we have to do on the road to happiness.

jim out

1f1eb4cf.pngJim Murray is an experienced advertising and marketing professional. He is a communication strategist, writer, art director, broadcast producer & mildly opinionated op/ed blogger.

He is also a partner at Bullet Proof Consulting. www.bulletproofconsulting.ca.

Follow Jim

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On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-murray-b8a3a4/

On Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jimbobmur

On Facebook: https://tinyurl.com/y97gxro4



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Comments

Harvey Lloyd

6 years ago #9

Looking for a recipe of media dieting? I believe @Jim Murray may be onto the best way to approach reducing the talking heads in our lives.

Harvey Lloyd

6 years ago #8

@Jim Murray I am humbled beyond belief. Your pursuit is a wise one. The rule that i live by is that everyone wants something. From helping me make sense of the world or manipulation to have their opinion. The news these days does seem to be wanting me to share their opinion regardless of side, and quite frankly, willing to lie/fake news and mostly engage my emotions and not intellect. Lets get mad then we will talk about it:) I praise your efforts to expose this very subject within your powerful writing skills.

Jerry Fletcher

6 years ago #7

#2
Jim, I've noticed lately that unless the piece title contains a keyword that is foremost in a target group's mind the numbers are generally lower. My regular blogs which also appear on Linked in and Facebook are maintaining readership because they are predictably (for the reader) about Brand. My guess is that certain subjects are in vogue for a while and then go out. If you look at Google Trends you can get a good idea of what those interests are over time. It has caused me to change Speech Titles to incorporate the word Brand even though my most requested programs currently have Marketing in the title and in the past used the word Networking. I've come to believe that a huge piece of the public has the attention span of gnat.

Jim Murray

6 years ago #6

#4
We can agree to disagree on that. My example Donald Trump.

Lyon Brave

6 years ago #5

The news makes us paranoid. This worry causes physical ailments, so the drug industry and the healthcare professions benefit I am going to have to use this for inspiration

Mark Morris

6 years ago #4

#2
People tend to turn off, and stop reading people who complain, rant, and are generally angry people. Those "writers" seem to make themselves irrelevant to readers even if they post good material also. ...and readers don't really like to hear the same thing multiple times a day from the same person. One trick ponies don't do well on social. On any subject.

Lada 🏡 Prkic

6 years ago #3

Lately, I also wonder where have all the readers gone. I would only say that knowledge is power, no matter how seems "useless". :)

Jim Murray

6 years ago #2

#1
Thanks Jerry Fletcher. You know this one did almost as poorly on LinkedIn as it did here. Wonder where all the readers went to.

Jerry Fletcher

6 years ago #1

Jim, It's not that all this bad news wasn't happening before. It is just that now it is so much easier to access. You're right. Cut off the access and the world becomes a better place. It gives us the time to simply enjoy being alive. And that ain't all bad!

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