Hey, welcome to this piece on the problem of distraction. distractions are fascinating. They rarely ever talk about them in psychology. But they're absolutely fascinating. And they have a huge impact on why we do the things that we do. Where you're constantly constantly in a stream of consciousness, looking for distractions, moment by moment, second, a second.

And when we when we talked about the ego, and we said there's this little chattering monkey, who always talking never shuts up, bla bla bla bla bla, a stream of consciousness is always looking for distraction. If it keeps you distracted, it will keep you off balance, and never what notice it and you will need it because you need so much stimulation. Because like we talked in the last section, you want to feel good all the time. Most these distractions are about what making you feel good, but we'll go from Most any distraction. Let me show you some of the most popular distractions, food, television, movies, sex, computers, and phones and selfies. Were very narcissistic this generation.

Not that we weren't always we just didn't have the right technology, right? So we're always trying to find something. And notice that these are things that are outside of us, like we talked about in the last section that are making us feel good. And they kind of work some of our physical urges. Eating is a physical urge. Sex is a physical urge, or they take us out of our environment, like TV, and computers and movies.

These are all fantasy areas, things we couldn't see things we couldn't experience that we crave, but we're not going to have in our life. It's pitiful, but it's true. So still more distractions. What are some other fun things that people like to distract themselves with? shopping? Big one retail therapy, other people's problems.

I've got a sister, she loves to go through other people's problems when she hasn't got enough problems in her life. She starts on somebody else's or she goes and deals with her kids or she'll create problems, problems, problems, problems, she loves them. Most people hate problems. She loves them. Great distraction, why she's focusing on somebody else's life. She doesn't have to focus on her crappy life.

See how that works. The news, CNN constantly negative news, all these different kinds of dramatized negative rubbish that they just pour out. But it's fascinating why we are instinctually drawn member, we will do two times as much two and a half times as much to avoid pain is to gain pleasure. As an instinct. Our brain is drawn to the negative. The news people know this.

That's why you see right any positive stories. Matter of fact, the only time they'll do a positive story once in a while, is like a big time wrestler will really lift you over his head. Why is he doing that? Because the very next thing he's going to do is slam you down. That's the only reason the news will ever do anything uplifting is because they want to slam you down next. Politics is endlessly fascinating.

There's so many different philosophies and issues and arguments and it brings in all this emotional stuff. It will keep you completely wrapped up. problems in politics, I think and news are some of the greatest distractions that are out there. Gossip is another good one. Work is endlessly distracting. There's always one more thing you could be thinking about or doing at work or worrying about.

Creating drama. I tell you about my sister that will create the drama if there isn't any kids will give you at least 20 years, you know PR of drama. Matter of fact, when they actually get out of the house, you think the drama is over. They never stopped needing their parents. You will die before your kids. Stop needing your creativity.

In your life, hobbies are actually more of a positive distraction. neurosis is a major one. There's there's an endless number of things to worry about. If you can't find enough, please see CNN. They'll help you out with that, or any news channel. Gambling is another one drugs again things outside ourselves that both distract us and what make us feel better.

Yeah, relationships are a great source of distraction, resentments, daydreaming, you got nothing to think about. Think about any old thing, whatever runs across your mind. shiny objects are anything that comes across your awareness that you suddenly get excited about. You can always think about the past in the future. Matter of fact, the average human being will spend about 60% of their time thinking about the past, about 39% of their time thinking about or worrying about the future, and only about 1% of the time actually focused on what they're doing. Which means you only live about 1% of your life.

It's one of the major challenges in life. Shameless plug I would hit my training on Zen. It tells you how to break out of that. People want to live longer. They've got all these anti aging problem products and things like that and systems that they use and diets and regiments and things like that. The question isn't, is there life before and after death?

The question is their life before death? Are you staying present in the now sucking all the juice and pleasure out of your life? Are you barely living it because you're trapped in the past in the future? for the average person, they're trapped in the past in the future, their life gets 99% wasted in 1% used. We got to have better figures in it. That's what the training is for on Zen.

So guilt and regrets another huge one, and much, much more. So why are we distracting ourselves? Again, this will go back to the ego. It's another great reason why people do the things they do. Why do they do all these distractions? Well, we try to distract ourselves from the horrible pain.

Of living. Remember, the egos job is to make you feel bad. And then you got to distract yourself from the pain that keeps the ego busy. So now it's Employee of the Year, you couldn't survive without it, it becomes indispensable by causing you pain, causing you problems, and then saying, Don't worry, I'm your buddy, I'm your pal. I'll help you out. I'll make you feel better.

Hey, let's go to a movie. Let's drink. You know, let's eat a bunch of chocolate. Let's go have some crazy sex. Let's buy an expensive sports car. You know, let's focus on other people's problems, something something something.

So I'm not thinking about all the things that are going wrong in my life. That wouldn't be going wrong. If I were able to solve the issue of ego. That's the other thing about the Zen therapy because it will teach you how to defeat the ego. That's what most of the training is about. So we spend an awful lot of time in distraction, trying to get away from the horrible Pain of living.

But there is a way out. I would recommend the Zen therapy. I'm not aware of another therapy that will actually work for that. There's some great books out there. There's one called, appropriately enough, Zen therapy. There's another one by Eckhart Tolle.

It's called The Power of Now, another great one, I would recommend that, but learn how to get away from this non stop stream of distractions and get back into the present and back into enjoying these things. There's nothing wrong with going to a movie, as long as you're enjoying it. It's not so you can forget about your stinking life. Okay. And the sad thing is we're trying to distract ourselves from quote, unquote, this horrible pain of living, not because our life is so horrible, but because the ego is making it bad and without the ego, your life would be great. So, those are my recommendations, short training for this time, and I'll see you in the next one