Here are the top 6 things that keep many of us way too distracted:
1. Music and Entertainment -- Disclaimer: I'm not against music or entertainment. However, I am a little worried that music and entertainment, too often, takes the place of learning. A lot of us focus more time on concerts and the latest dances on Tik Tok, than on personal growth, our spiritual selves, reading, putting new knowledge to work, or learning about how to create, save, and invest our money. Again music and entertainment is wonderful and it definitely has its place, but when lives are at stake, futures are hanging in the balance, and generational survival is on the line, music, movies, concerts and other forms of entertainment, should probably go on the back burner.
This insatiable need to be entertained has been used to dull us and sort of desensitize us. Music is fun, music is good for the soul, and music can be a blast to listen to and dance to, but for 99.9% of us, music has not put any food on the table, paid a bill in the house, or fed anything of substance to us or our children. Let’s not get so wrapped up into entertainment that we lose sight of priorities. Handle your business, then party all you want. Don't party all you want, and then, maybe, if you have time, handle your business.
2. Politics - While politics is important and also has its place, especially local politics, I could care less about getting up in arms, distraught, or worried about the national political scene that seems more like a circus and a Reality TV show, then real substantial politics. Sure, politics definitely matters, but the amount of time we spend arguing over it, mimicking talking points we are told to discuss by CNN and FOX News, and debating who has said and done what, is amazing. We spend a lot of energy playing this political fiddle that makes Democrats hate all things Republicans, and Republicans hate all things Democrat. If you agree with all things on one side of the political fence, and dislike all things on the other side, then you probably aren't thinking for yourself, and are a bigger pawn in the political game then you know. CNN, MSNBC, and FOX News, often times, creates political news out of thin air, which provides them with programming that is designed to draw viewership, which, in turn, draws sponsors that pay for commercial spots. It's a well-designed game to keep you off kilter, out of focus, and distracted, and we fall for it by feverishly engaging in it.
If you want to vote and participate, by all means please do so, and so will I, but I'm not going to spend precious time debating and talking about the issues that television executives force in front of me. I can't base a lot of opinions on the political farce and sideshows I see on tv and then have any well thought out comments over poorly presented, politically biased news reporting.
Politics is not the problem, but all of the time and energy we give to the dog n’ pony show is. Behind closed doors, politicians on both sides of the fence, are more alike than they are different. I’d rather spend that energy building something of my own, and critically thinking for myself about things I deem important to me and my community. If you get busy building and creating and learning, then you will have less time to focus on Reality TV, better known as national politics.
3. Sports - Athletics has become one of the absolute biggest distractions. And this is coming from a sports fanatic who coached middle and high school sports, and coached a girls' basketball team for an additional 5 years. I'm also a 2-time Fantasy Football competitive auction-style draft winner! But I've sort of took a different look at sports in that last few years and I've noticed some things. I've noticed that we spend more time debating sports, attending sporting events, thrusting children into club sports, and watching sports, then most of us do with anything else in our lives.
We decorate our faces and yell and cheer like lunatics, paint our man caves, hold on to the hope of glory for our marginally athletic children, argue about frivolous statistics as if we really have stake in a professional or college team, bet on sports, and work overtime to afford tickets, parking, and beer.
At some point, enough is absolutely enough! I agree that sports are incredibly fun, is chalk full of life lessons, is entertaining, and wildly exciting, but it's also purposely used as a distraction. We pack arenas, pay ridiculous costs, and over-consume sports like its life-giving water. It's overload and it's fed to us 24 hours a day. Enough is enough already with the sports!! Seriously. Time to re-focus on things that really truly matter.
4. Racism and other ism's - Racism is wrong,
and damaging to the psyche. Racism, and other "isms' are hurtful, crushing, controlling, and consuming. Any of these "isms" can be a major distraction and major impediment to one's life. The challenge is to not let it be. The one commonality a group tends to have is to rally around how they are treated, or the obstacles they face. The only problem is how daunting and time consuming this rallying can become. It can block progress and destroy motivation. It's an everyday battle to not let racism consume you. It's a major distraction when we constantly face racism, and, in turn, are constantly forced to think about and absorb the enormity of the effects of it on our lives.
Don't let the -isms distract you from being successful. It's important and good to know about it, discuss constructive ways to deal with it and change it, and learn about the history and current impacts of it, but make a vow to never have long drawn out conversations about it, UNLESS you are offering solutions or ways to overcome it! Just sitting around and talking about something that you never plan to address, change, work through, teach, analyze, dissect, or solve, is not constructive.
Constructive conversations about race are wonderful, but if it’s non-constructive, please don’t waste your precious energy on it. You can complain all day and night until you are blue in the face about racism, or any other ism, but until you do something, change something, or build something, the problems regarding these isms aren't going anywhere, and the people that practice racism aren't changing anytime soon. The quicker you find ways to compete, and be constructive around a topic, the better off you will be. Vow to add solutions to every conversation you have about racism, or any other ism, and then it turns from being a gripe session that is a daunting distraction, to being a source of empowerment and action!
5. Food - We have an addiction to food in our society and its based on the dead carcasses of poorly fed and overly fattened animals, loads of man-made laboratory sugars, and chemically enhanced compounds that most of us can’t even pronounce. We think about food constantly, can’t wait to eat, stuff our bodies insatiably, and abuse ourselves with our addiction to grease, sodium, glucose, meat, breads, and dairy foods that is made in labs. Sounds over-the-top, and I wish it was. The problem is, it's true! Our addiction to food is so bad that most of us don’t even realize we have this addiction, so obesity runs rampant, and as a result, heart disease, cancers, and diabetes consumes our lives. We sometimes seem helpless as we just continue to overly stuff ourselves with the wrong food that send us into states of comatose, and other chemically induced zombie-like inactivity. We eat too much, we the wrong stuff, we eat too often, we eat at the wrong times, and we wonder why we are so distracted that we can’t focus, can’t think, can barely concentrate, and run back to the same unhealthy food day after day.
Alcoholism has very serious health affects on the brain, heart, pancreas, mouth, liver, and immune system.
6. Alcohol – A recent study reported that in 2018, America had 83,517 liver disease deaths, and 48 percent of the deaths, over the age of 12, involved alcohol. The CDC reported that in 2018 that alcohol-impaired driving accounted for more than 30 percent of all driving fatalities each year. Click HERE for more shocking statistics about America’s addiction to alcohol. It’s literally everywhere.
Despite the health issues, broken relationships, and car accidents that it causes, people chug it at sporting events, parties, nightclubs, concerts, happy hours, etc. You name it, and there is alcohol there. Every facet of American life revolves around alcohol, despite the health damages, the families ruined by the addiction, and the deaths it causes.
As long as you are caught up in the distraction of drinking, you are ripe for poor decisions, hindrances, and obstructions to anything constructive! I'm not here to be the moral police, or tell you what to do on a Friday night, but alcohol is a big distraction for too many of us, like it or not.
If you can sort of curb your enthusiasm over these 6 things, you will be set to focus on the things in life that matter most, like God, family, giving to others, building wealth for your community and your family, and learning and educating yourself.
Right now, during the COVID-19 pandemic, while the majority of us are at home, is a perfect opportunity for many of us to sort of re-focus and intentionally veer ourselves in a direction away from these distractions. Live sports is no longer available at the time, so now is a great time to turn the tv and the new stations off, refrain from binge watching your Netflix series, pray or meditate, start eating better, resolve to not let the "isms" get in your way, put down the wine, stop yourself from tuning into the DJ parties and battles on Facebook, and sharpen your daily habits.
Start with just a couple of days a week and force yourself to refrain from the normal overload of consumption from the rhetoric surrounding these things, and you will soon become more productive and in control of your own destiny!
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