GIGO: garbage in, garbage out! Do you know how to stay positive and healthy?

I haven't watched the news, read a newspaper, or watched tv in years. And since I like happy endings and movies that inspire me I'm very picky about the movies I will watch. And I am becoming very picky about the thoughts I entertain and the conversation I engage in. Less trash coming in means less trash going out. Hehehe, I recycle too, in fact I won't even buy anything that has excessive wrapping around it for me to have to deal with later. I once read how, I think it was something to do with the Japanese, a certain people would neatly bundle their trash up like a work of art. I like to treat my trash like that too, and it's pretty hard to do that if it's coming in by the truckload!

Funny I usually fall asleep with the news on. Guess that is the journalist in me. Humor, humor, and more humor. That is how I survive. I work though my feelings and face them head on. I always see the glass as half full and did I mention Humor? I watch horror movies, the news, and deal with NYC and still have a healthy outlook on life. Ainge

I do pretty good keeping a positive attitude. Sure life gets me down sometimes, but I won't allow the negatives to control me. I sometimes don't watch the news just because it's almost all negative reporting, if they had a 'good news channel' I'd probably watch it hahaha. I find that it helps to keep a gratitude list, and each day I write something positive in it that happened that day...no matter how small or how big. Some days there's not a whole lot to be thankful for, but if you look hard enough there had to be at least one bright spot in it. When I have a down day, I often take out my list and look at it, and then I can visually see how blessed I really am, and that life doesn't always hand me lemons. I have lots of health issues, so I often have to remind myself that hey...I'm still here, and that's a definite positive! Wishing you a positive and happy evening! Joy

Aptly put, and that is why I don't watch news programs. I read the news because reading is an active process whereas viewing is passive. The point is that if we watch negative things over time it takes a tremendous amount of mental energy to clear away the junk, and that energy could be used much more productively. I prevent those feelings by not allowing them in to my consciousness in the first place. The TV does, after all, have an "off" button.

Most of the time I can't do anything to prevent the bad feelings in the first place.I have bad feelings sometime,but I won't let them last long.I will to do something I like ,such as taking a walk ,listening to some music to get rid of the bad feelings.I always think, I have to live,and there is a long road in front of me.So if I want to survive the rest of my life,then I must make my life easier as possible.Then I must stay happy,there is not much time for me to grieve.

Great Post and link. Oh yes uncluttering the brain is a difficult task. and regarding the news...I try to avoid watching it if I can. I did a cartoon about that here: http://www.lulu.com/content/2262154

Hi olivemai, This is a useful thread you've started here. We think in pictures, so what we see goes much more readily into our self than other modes of input. And anything that gets in there, anything that we PERMIT to go in there, by default behaves as a seed that takes root and grows, silently and without needing any further intervention or conscious awareness of the fact. Thoughts are things. They exist, they live, they grow and they propagate. Our thoughts can be likened to weeds in a garden - the garden of our minds. Anything that we permit into that garden will take root and grow. And there's more to it than that, too. Time and space are illusions - our thoughts influence both the future and the past. Our expectations attract the corresponding reality - both in the future and in the past. Which all speaks to the need for cultivating the thoughts that correspond to our desired reality. And that probably means rigidly censoring the material that's fed to our self by whatever sources are pumping it. There are other angles, other dimensions, to this subject - all relevant to some extent. For example, humans are herding creatures - we tend to align our thinking with whatever we believe that others around us are thinking. This just adds a degree of difficulty when one intends to think independently - and it suggests just how readily we absorb and assimilate whatever is presented to us, and just how disciplined one needs to be to filter out inappropriate material. All in all, I'd recommend not watching TV at all, unless a specific educational documentary of particular interest is being shown. Television is an extremely influential conduit for propaganda and other brainwashing material to be fed directly into our homes. We've generally been educated to consider television programs as "entertainment", but it's actually mass mind-control in disguise. And IMO it's done great damage to the minds of Western peoples - to their culture, values, attitudes, intelligence and expectations. I believe many people are addicted to television viewing - an addiction cultured by years of habit and convenience. Voluntary submission to an insidious brainwashing and propaganda device. The best way to avoid the consequences of television viewing is to simply avoid watching television.