I saw a study recently that said that many people are actually LESS happy with social networking then they were without it. It's like hyper fuel for the "keeping up with the Joneses" syndrome. Most folks are not transparent about their actual feelings on Facebook -- in fact I joke all the time that I wish I could be as happy in real life as I pretend to be on Facebook. It's a joke -- but there's some truth to that.
On top of all the new social networking influx of data -- we are now also consumed by a very intense and opinionated 24-hour news cycle that seems to never stop. And what's crazy is that most news channels have gone from just reporting on what happens with no bias, to being heavily biased. And it's on the left and on the right. To top it off -- we now have almost instant awareness to any major or semi-major event that happens around the world in seconds.
People talk nowadays about how there is so much crazy stuff going on in the world. And I say, well, there has always been crazy stuff going on in the world, we just now know about all of it. The same amount of crazy stuff has always been going on in the world. The difference is that now we are all connected -- so the amount of crazy stuff that's going on in the world hasn't increased; what's increased is our awareness of what has been happening the whole time.
Imagine what the world would have been like if we had Twitter/Facebook during the Civil War or the Crusades. Instant, worldwide awareness of those events would dramatically affect the psychology of the world. Yet, many people didn't hear about those events or the outcome of those events on a global scale until well after they had stopped -- many folks didn't hear about it at all. Now, we know everything all the time.
And many people feel trapped, overwhelmed and consumed by all this information. But here's the good news -- all religions, all therapies, all transformational modalities agree on one point -- your life becomes what you think about most of the time. Thoughts are things. And beyond that, crazy things do happen in the world every day, but it is up to us to apply the meaning to the events.
So, with every negative new story or negative economic outlook, because we have such opinionated media outlets, we let them paint our opinions for us. And quite frankly, if I was letting the news media paint my opinion of the world, my life would probably suck. But, that's not how I live my life. I am aware of the news and I check it every day to see what's going on, but I get to give everything that happens in the world a meaning, not the news media.
This is why I am so thrilled that The Huffington Post has started the Good News section of their website. There are all kinds of awesome things happening across the globe. On top of that, we are learning how powerful our connected world is, and how much power we each have individually to filter all of the information that is coming in and give it an empowering meaning.
It's very easy to slide into becoming a victim of the news cycle and let the opinions of the media become your own. But today our growth is dependent upon us taking responsibility for our own opinions and seeing life as it is, but not worse than it is. Most of the news media sees life worse than it is and can't seem to see a way out. And that kind of perspective is part of the problem.
The solutions to today's problems in the world won't come from Washington, the news media or big business. They come from one person at a time who chooses to wake up and see the absolute miracle that this life is and then dedicating their life to being a part of those solutions, instead of wallowing in the problems and being defined by the opinions of others, instead of making up their own mind.
We are becoming a more connected and aware global community, and as this continues, our job is to remain informed, but self-aware enough to make up our own choices about what we believe and becoming a part of the solution, instead of arguing about what the problems are.
Great job HuffPo on launching this section! I'm excited to be a part of it and know that it will continue to be a place where solution minded people will come to change the world -- together.
Sending you some daily love,
Mastin