Oakville Zen Meditation

#278 : Stop being miserable in advance July 6th 19

                  Stop being miserable in advance

Another way to say it would be:

 “We should not try to be our own news maker with a mind-made 24h news channel, full of negativity”.

It is well known among guru in media marketing that news content from the major broadcasting networks must be at least 75% to 80% bad news or drama to attract viewers.

The highest Nielsen audience, the more expensive commercials are.

Drama/bad news are the rules for high audience with the exception live sport networks.

The way we, consciously and nervously worry about zillions of bad news from the media or nor existing yet is strange if you think about it.  To the extreme it might even be considered masochistic.

By definition, this voluntary anxious feeling about something that hasn’t not yet happened is a powerful mental trap and pure delusion since the future and its concrete content do not yet exist.  How our mind is controlling us by generating positive and negative emotions involving the virtual reality of the future is fascinating

Unfortunately, this is what we are doing spontaneously most of the time without looking too much at its rationality. This is called, in Zen,  “day dream walking”

Why are we our own mind-made 24h bad news channel and why we are, too often, attracted to negativity and “feel bad” stuff?

Modern research in psychology has not yet been able to find clear answers.

Maybe our 3.4 billion years of evolution with fear of danger, fight for survival and unpredictability has affected our genes responsible of this mental behavior.

Pragmatist people including Zen practitioners cannot be and should not be worried about every possible outcome in advance. Think about it:

Best scenario--- If the news turns out to be better than expected, all this previous time of been worried was wasted with needless permanent anxiety and fear.

The present moment is contaminated by this hypothetical doom and gloom.

Worst scenario--- If the bad news turned out to be true, we have been also  miserable in advance, sort of bad extra time before reality. Crazy.

Bad stuff is  bad enough when they arrived. Don’t give them more mental space.

Surely, there are better way to use the current moment even if this moment is perceived boring and dull.

A day that should not be spent in worrying about the days we may not exist.

Let the news come when it comes and don’t be anxious and worried in advance.

Instead, try to keep the mind to pay attention to the now, the only reality even if your mind is bordered. Being in Past and future are  mental entertainment.