Weapons of Mass Distraction

Whether you’re a conspiracy theorist or not  (think Boston) consider the spectacle that is the reporting of these violent events.

An ever-increasing media addicted society means there’s nothing easier (or perhaps more sinister) than becoming one with the slick dramas we’re brainwashed by daily.

And episodic drama it is! Journalists as actors. Politicians and government officials coached to academy award winning performances. All broadcast through technology so advanced it’d inspire jealousy in an alchemist! These are the ingredients of a potent propaganda soup.

Now I’m not qualified to say whether what is being dished out is true or false, good or bad. But there’s no doubt the versions of events plated up for us to swallow are so biased that fact finding is as fraught with illusion as Dorothy’s skip down the yellow brick road or Alice’s launch down the bunny hole.

What fascinates me is how our response to viewing these events affects careers and job searches, our work.

Our brain waves change to alpha level when watching videos online or TV. That’s an almost semi-hypnotic state, where we’re sponges for whatever is proffered up and absorb information more potently.

If you’re unemployed your psyche may already be disenfranchised. The unknown is what you wake up to daily, a vacuum of uncertainty that is easily filled – positively or negatively.

Who’s most successful on job hunts? Those who are confident, positive, clear and focused. In short, the antithesis of the state you may unknowingly slip into when watching storm troopers evict people from their homes.

When our brains buy into fear and confusion (which they inevitably will when we’re glued to a screen) we’re rendered less powerful. It can paralyze at worst and be a negative state changer at best.

The remedy? Turn it off. Redirect your thoughts. Ask yourself what constructive difference it’ll make if you watch the same violent video loop a million times.

Then ask what difference it’d make if you sat silently imagining your career – as you’d like it to be. Or what would result if you focused on order and possibility? What would happen if you ruminated on (and believed in) solutions rather than the uncontrollable?

I’m not proposing we become ostriches, heads in a dune, unaware of world events. I am suggesting that overexposure is not only counterproductive it’s unhealthy.