I took a few days off social media this week which I do on occasion to lift myself above the din of positive sharings, negative sharings, spam, self-promotion, real news, fake news and everything else that social media is.
One thing that creating some space between myself and social media provides is an opportunity to see who adds to my Life and who detracts from it. Sometimes it is hard to distinguish real value from the rest of the “stuff” floating around when thousands of voices are clamouring “look at me” at the same time.
Our brain, while staggering in its capabilities, has limits in terms of what it can absorb, process and respond to consciously. However, it does react to everything, even if we are not aware of it, as it subconsciously processes data via the miracle that is our five senses and its potential expands or contracts as a result.
What serves our brain best is when we feed it with information, knowledge, data, facts and feelings that contribute to our vision for a better self, better relationships with others, better results in everything we do and a better world at large.
That’s not to say that when people feed it negative information that this information must be shut out. If you are on a sinking ship and someone is screaming in your face that the ship is sinking, this bad news provides you with what you need to save your Life.
So not all sources of bad news need to be shut off nor should they be.
However, there is a certain percentage of social media (and media in general) that is filled with pure hatred, falsehoods to manipulate us, fear and negativity for the sake of fear and negativity and not to inform us or call us to action, selfish self-promotion that screams “enough about you, let’s talk about me”, people who debate everything just for the sport of it or people who want to drown out everyone else so only they can be heard as they drive a personal agenda that benefits only themselves.
And when we step away from this noise, find a place of quiet and then take a look at the world of social media that we are immersed in, it becomes apparent as to who is contributing to or detracting from our lives.
After that, it is up to us to take action – action to enable us to be better people or to remain mired in a cacophony that serves the needs or bows to the weak mindedness of others while not allowing each of us to be the best that we can be.
After all – we are the company that we keep.
Whether that sends out a good message or a bad one or produces a good result or a bad one is up to us.
Who do you choose to be?
What result do you choose to produce?
What are you waiting for?
In service and servanthood,
Harry
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