Just like computer, our brain works similar and even greater than that. Thus, there are many things that are invading our mind at a constant value with bigger and faster influence more than ever. A lot of people want to share their mind on you, including me. But how do you know or what do you let to enter your mind? If you don’t have anti virus or filter in your mind, people will really invade your mind, instill ideas or values that can break your identity.
When I commute to work, I travel using public transport. For you who might be driving, you might see different types of people. I like to see what others are doing while listening to music or podcast. there are only a few types of people:
1. Those who look at their phones for playing games, watch drama, reading news, etc.
2. People who listen to something. Such as podcast, radio, audio book, or just music
3. Those who sleeping on the way. No matter what the time is, there’s always somebody who is sleeping
4. People who read “physical” such as kindle, actual book, or newspaper
5. People who do combination from the above
6. And maybe there is somebody else like me who watch what other people are doing.
From those media, people are absorbing contents to their life. If we are not careful enough, we can get or instill wrong values and think that it is the right things to do. I’m not saying that all information are bad, I’m saying that there are a lot of information out there that are waiting to be read or seen by you, are you selecting good or bad contents for your mind?
There are 3 areas that we need to watch and make sure we have the right anti virus to cover these:
1. Point of View / Perspective
Most information are consumed through your eyes. What kind of things that you like to read or watch? Nowadays, there are a lot of selection from any way of life: drama, movies, world news, stock exchange, talk show, cooking show, etc. That’s the reason why everyone want to gain your time to look at those things. If you’re not careful, you are allowing bad influence in your mind. I might start with something that might look not really wrong, and it end up way out of your original belief. Think it this way, if you have children or younger cousin, will you let them watch or see what you are watching/reading? Or if it’s telling something that seems like a norm, how do you feel if your child, your relative, or even your spouse be that person? I know that most of the show is just for entertainment, sometime they give moral value, sometime they don’t. We all have limited amount of time, how much of our time are we giving it to consume those contents. After a long day at work or studies, we need some entertainment to relieve our mind from our fatigue for a short while before we do what we need to do, but some time, or most of the time, those “short while” become a long time.
This area is dangerous in the sense that you won’t realize the impact in your life. There are things that are right, but because of the trend that we watch, it becomes old school. For example, respecting elder people. sometime I saw that more younger people either have no respect or just doesn’t care of their parents. They want to do what they want to do in the time they want to do it. I’m almost shifting to that kind of person which want everything to fit in my schedule, not my parents. I learn that you need to give careful thought on what you’re looking. The movies or news will assume that you know the right thing and have a good guidance. That’s why they put warning in the beginning, PG-13, PG-21, etc. But do you have the right guidance?
2. Greed and fear
Have you ever received an email or phone call that you won a million dollar out of nowhere, and for you to claim it, you just need to transfer a certain amount of money to an account? Or somebody message you to say that one of your family members had an accident and they need some money to be paid to hospital? Or somebody who claimed to be police officer, government official, or bank personnel trying to get some personal information from you? People are smarter to find some way to trick you. And I believe that these 2 areas are actually the same. It’s playing with your feeling. They even give you a bit so that you’ll spend more with them. When you know things are cheap, or you almost got the chance to win something, you will spend more. Don’t you agree?
You might think that you won’t fall into those kind of scheme. Maybe you are right, I’m just giving a warning that anyone might fall on this. These kind of things are evolving, and when we’re not ready, we’re more prone to fall into trap. Greed and fear are two things that people have most possibilities to fail. It’s also possible because of those reason, people are doing things that they should not do. They feel that they have everything under control, but at the end, they realize that they are helpless. A few years back, I always thought that I can control my spending. I always watch how much I spend and what I want to spend. But there is time that I thought to be able to buy one more things. There is a discount that I might not able to enjoy the same price later, I’d better buy it now. And I did. I use my credit card to buy it, because I think and justify myself that I need it. it end up I need to wait a few months to repay the credit card debt, and to realize that I just want it. Have you ever feel that way?
3. Pride
The last area that I can think of is pride. No matter who you are, no one is immune to this. I can say, as a man, I believe that men are prone to this thing. But again everyone is prone to this. People love when others give respect and treat them well. That is good, right? That’s true, but when you have become overly confident, you will have greater chance to fall. What do you think the reason people continue to gamble? Why people cheat their spouse? Why do people kill, steal, or something bad? Although it might be for some other reason, some of the reason fall in ‘pride’ category. They do all that because they want to look better compare to others. Same like greedy people, they think they have everything under control and they can never lose control. Sometime they know they don’t have it in control, but their pride kicks in and they are to prideful to admit that they need help. This is one of the reason, people are more individualist. They don’t want to make other people think less of them. they just want to solve everything themselves.
What is your anti virus to block all this things? Or what do you use to know which one is the truth and which one is not? You better have something that you can trust to know what you can or can’t do. Just like you need a map or GPS to navigate you around, you need a foundation for you to perceive the things that you read or see. For me, I learn that the trusted source is the Bible. You might have different believe, although I hope that you can believe it too, I let you make your decision. From what I can see, the bible is not shifted. It says what it has said and stick to it. Unfortunately some people like to pick and choose some of the bible verse for their own benefit or to agree on their ideas, but that’s not like that if you take and read everything in it. Do you believe it? You can read it to find out more. People, including our parents might shift from their original perspective as they aged. So what or who do you trust? The world will always fill your mind with something, what is your anti virus for your mind?
What do you have to filter the informations that you read or watch?
Proverbs 4:23 “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”
