First, Happy Fathers Day!
I believe that we choose our parents before we incarnate into this vibration. So, no matter what you think of your parents, remind yourself that YOU chose them for whatever lesson you wanted to learn while you were here. You don’t believe this? Ask yourself if it would hurt or harm you to believe this?
Second, I would like to apologize for not writing for a couple of weeks. We went to an amazing wedding in San Diego and stayed a couple of extra days on the beach in Encinitas. We would get up every morning and walk over to the Pannikin Coffee and Tea House and for me having lived on the beach in California, it was like a home coming. The salt air, the cyclists zooming by, the farmers markets, and the temperature. Oh yeah, the temperature. It was between 65 – 75 degrees the whole time. This time of year its called ‘June Gloom’ where the haze comes over and blocks the sun. I LOVED it! When we got back home to Vegas it was pushing 113 degrees. Ugh!
But this is not what I’m here to talk about today.
What I would like to discuss is Social Media. One of my favorite YouTube personalities is a man named Ralph Smart. He runs the very successful site called Infinite Waters. I always look forward to hearing him say, “Can I get a Hello there! Peace! Infinite Waters diving deep once again.” Well, he was talking about social media and the effects on relationships. Ralph talked about a couple and the jealousy going on because of one of the partners liking scantily clad women. Take a listen to what he had to say about that. The link is above.
I’d like to talk about another aspect of Social Media. Friends, and our role in this new paradigm.
We all want friends. We all want a good friend to talk to when we want some advice but somewhere in Social Media we’ve acquired friends that we don’t even know and have told all of these friends our deepest darkest secrets, our opinions, our fears. We get to the point where we think we actually know these people, and in some ways we have gotten to know them. We’ve gotten to know the part that they want us to see. Their mask. Social media has taken the place of churches, bars, coffee houses… places where we could get into a conversation with someone and get their feedback. The internet is an amazing tool and has done wonders for me as a musician, so don’t think I’m bashing the idea of friends. Not at all.
My concern is this….
I want you to imagine, if you will… The next time you post something imagine the person you are posting to right there in front of you. Is this something you would say to someone standing right there? You see, if we post something mean to another person we don’t see their anger, their frustration or their hurt. We don’t see their eyes. We don’t really know why that person posted what they posted. For the most part, I believe, it’s for attention. Something we aren’t getting in our home life. But that is another blog.
When I was a child we had 4 TV stations. ABC, NBC, CBC and PBS. We didn’t watch much TV unless it was a Sunday night Disney Special or maybe Happy Days. We used it for entertainment, for the Weather or the news in our immediate vicinity. We didn’t have celphones. We had a home phone, and depending on the size of your house or your economic stature, you only had one for the whole household. We didn’t have the internet. A computer was a pocket calculator that helped you solve equations quicker than writing them out on paper. We relied on nature, our friends in the neighborhood for our entertainment. To me, back then, meditation was very easy. If I wanted quiet I would walk down to the pond and sit underneath a tree. I’d listen to the birds or the squirrels scampering around. If I tried that today I would be jolted back to reality with my phone buzzing. Every generation talks about how much more difficult it was than these kids nowadays. Not anymore. I think it’s much more difficult because there is so much mental chatter going on around us that we can’t even think for ourselves. We can’t shut it off.
What is my point?
My point is this… we’ve come to a time where we have let the immediate gratification of everything around us get to the better part of us. The part that allows us to actually think before we speak. Instead of sitting with ourselves and asking our higher self for an answer we will post on Facebook what we are feeling right in that moment. What we need right at that moment. Who we hate right at that moment. Get where I’m going? There was an old adage that my Mother used to say to us… Stop. Look. Listen. You don’t have to like somebody’s post as soon as it has been posted. I’m betting most of you don’t even read this far in anybody’s posts. We’re liking for the sake of liking. Because if we don’t like it somebody will be mad at us. So what!! That’s their issue. Not yours. Stop second guessing your inner voice. Stop trying to be everybody’s friend or drawing attention to yourself just because you’re lonely, or angry or jealous. Get a grip on yourself first. Talk to yourself. I mentioned that its much harder nowadays to do that, but I didn’t say that it’s impossible. If you have a hard time meditating, find people that meditate. Find people out there that you aspire to be.
What is your role in all of this?
Stop looking outside of yourself for the answers. You are the answer. As Gandhi said, “Be the change that you wish to see in this world”. It doesn’t mean that you can’t get tips and hints from other people on how to be a better person. We all do this. But once we rely on others completely we are losing our self. Today is Father’s Day. I mentioned above that we choose our parents so that we can incarnate into this life to contribute to this game of life. So contribute! Quit posting what you ate for breakfast unless you think it will help somebody with nutritional information. Be the change. Why? Because you are here for a reason. You are not a mistake. There are no mistakes. Everything happens for a reason.
So Stop The Mental Chatter!!!! 🙂
Ok… being that it is Father’s Day…. CALL your father. Yes, on the phone.
Namaste,
David
