The RSS post! (one of the ways where our thinking veers from traditional thinking.) Warning! I think this is the longest post I have ever written.
You have heard the old saying “You become what you think about.” right? Let me explain why I think is very true. First of all, what are most people thinking about? Let me give you a clue. Turn on the TV or radio, turn up the music on your iPod, surf the web, browse through a newspaper or magazine, look at a billboard. You are constantly being bombarded with the latest sensational headlines of war, crime, recession, and uncertainty. You are constantly being shown what you lack, what you don’t have, or how you don’t look. Sadly, what you see and hear daily, becomes what you think and ponder about and what your sub-conscious processes all day (and night).
Your brain is a magnificent creative engine that is constantly solving problems, building paths, analyzing ideas, and overcoming obstacles. Even while sleeping your brain is hard at work figuring out how to deal with information, recruiting different aspects of the brain to join the problem solving process. One of these is the reticular activator which is responsible for regulating arousal and sleep-wake transitions. As your brain constantly sorts the information it takes in everyday the reticular activator alerts you of things that you have absorbed through the course of your life, your month, your week, or your day, depending on the emphasis you placed on it when absorbing it.
Let me show you how this works. (I am getting to my point) Think about the car you drive or the car you want. Did you notice how many of the same car were driving around town before you bought yours or decided that you wanted to drive that car? More than likely not and in a sense (in your mind) it didn’t even exist. What about when you drove that car home from the car lot, all of a sudden there are several of the same car even the exact same color. Did they just appear out of nowhere? NO, they were always there you just never noticed them before. Once that car became yours your reticular activator jumped on board and now alerts you to every of your same car that your eyes see. Can you see how this process works with every aspect of information your eyes or ears take in.
Say you decide you want to loose weight. Immediately your brain goes to work trying to determine how to do this. You see an add on TV or hear from a friend a weight loss solution that worked for them. Your reticular activator throws up a red flag because your brain is trying to build a path for you to accomplish what you decided to do. One of two things happen, your brain reasons with information it has all ready been given and very quickly remembers another friend tried the same program reporting to you that it didn’t work, or, your logic says that this seems easy enough you can do this. And so your brain chooses which case holds the most weight (no pun intended) and decides how to further proceed. These processes happen spontaneously and millions of times per day.
The only thing that you have control over is what your eyes see and your ears hear, and sometimes that is hard to control. For this purpose I have chosen not to listen to or watch the news, I haven’t for years. I don’t care to read the newspapers. Not that I suggest this but I have taken an active roll in determining what my ears hear and my eyes see. Let me also say that I am not ignorant to local and global news. I merely evaluate and decide where or how best to hear or see the news, in ways that I see as positive.
One way that I do this is with RSS (Really Simple Syndication.) Basically, most every company, charity, group or organization has a website that provides RSS feeds with their newest articles or news items that you can subscribe to via RSS. In a nut shell RSS allows you to build your own online “newspaper.” To use these “feeds” you need a feed reader I use Google reader. I then seek out sources of info that I am interested in, websites that teach me, inspire me, update me or make me laugh. Every week I login to my Google reader account and automatically all the newest articles from the websites I have subscribed to are right there for me to view or read. It keeps track of articles I have previously viewed and even suggests RSS feeds I may be interested in based on the info in articles I am all ready subscribed to. This becomes a rich resource of positive, uplifting, motivational content that I have all ready pre-screened so to speak. Here is my two examples:
1) I have actually, via this method and other direct and specific web search methods, over the course of the last year taught myself how to build, from scratch, websites which has offered another stream of income to our household.
2) Yes I have heard and learned of the terrible earthquake in Haiti, however I learned of this not by pictures of loss, and destruction, and stories of disaster and death, but via the LDS newsroom feed that speaks of prayers offered, humanitarian aid sent, team of doctors to assist, personal hygiene kits, and organizational efforts. All positive things that are being done to help the situation. So at the end of the day my brain can focus on the good things of the world while helping me chart a course to my higher goals and interests.
So to wrap up, your brain is a terrific problem solver. I want my brain to guide me to where I want to go and who I want to be. You and I are capable of so much more, if we can just more specifically guide our brain to where we want to be. Think of it this way your brain is a College Student thirsting for knowledge while (because of what we choose to think about, talk about, read, and view) is stuck in a Kindergarten class bored to death, maybe even scared to go outside for recess because of all the junk the media puts in front it.
Start today choose a RSS feed reader, find items and articles that talk of success, happiness, innovation, prosperity, good times, fun activities, or that teach you about things you are interested in. And then ditch the junk.
Enjoy! If you have found any that you would pass on please share in the comments so we and other readers can check them out.
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