Bad News And Prophecies Are Synonymous

When I was young my family would moan at me because I would never sit down and watch the eight o’clock news to educate myself and know about current affairs. The duration of news is for around forty five minutes highlighting 99% of the time on the sufferings around the globe. Now, as “informative” as the news might be at times, what is its real purpose?

With the internet becoming part of our lives the news is no longer just at eight o’clock but all around the clock. Seldom do we hear good news, and most of the time the good news for most people is when they hear the weather reporter predicting a sunny day tomorrow. Apart from that and oh yeah hearing that, a kid was saved by cat whilst under attack by dog, there isn’t much else. As you know bad news sells. This is a concept we learned from the James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies. The owner of a media company was responsible for killings around the globe and then he would publish the news first. So, in the real essence of things what purpose does it serve to listen or read bad news? Very little purpose i believe. A lot of people have a hard time dealing with their own problems in life, having to hear what goes on around the globe such as recent a raping, pedophilia, church ruling against homosexuality etc has a sad impact on us.

A few lines ago, I mentioned the word predicting. Most of us may have come across some significant prophecies in recent years, either spoken by monks, gurus or various gifted individuals. Whether you believe in them or not, is irrelevant. My opinion is that bad news and prophecies are synonymous in nature. I do not doubt their validity, but they have no real value for anyone. They both prevent individuals from living and remaining focused in the present. Those societies which religion is an important part of their lives take the prophecies serious and they live their lives with the expectation that they will come true. In the mean time they are distracted from living consciously in the present. When the monks or a spiritual guru prophesize that they expect a war or some form of destruction they do nothing more than instill fear in people. People have their own fears and inhibitions do manage so they do not need to hear these. Whether we know about them or not, a prophecy usually comes true anyway (from what we have seen through time), so by knowing about it we will not change our destiny. 

Although the news provide us with important information which we can benefit from, we need to be very selective as to what we choose to listen to or read. If we live a more conscious life with less distractions then we can live more in the present, becoming part of a greater and better cause creating the good news we need in our lives.