Hey friends, and welcome! I hope you are doing well! I thought I would start off the day with a quote from one of my favorite philosophers. I find it very encouraging.

“Most of what passes for legitimate entertainment is inferior or foolish and only caters to or exploits people’s weaknesses. Avoid being one of the mob who indulges in such pastimes. Your life is too short and you have important things to do. Be discriminating about what images and ideas you permit into your mind. If you yourself don’t choose what thoughts and images you expose yourself to, someone else will, and their motives may not be the highest. It is the easiest thing in the world to slide imperceptibly into vulgarity. But there’s no need for that to happen if you determine not to waste your time and attention on mindless pap.”

-Epictitus

When I was a Christian, I was very careful about what I allowed into my mind. My criteria was “whatever is true, good, and lovely.”

As I moved out of the Christian sphere, I noticed something kind of surprising. Wisdom traditions are largely the same across religions and cultures. Who would’ve thought? I guess wisdom is wisdom, no matter where you come from or what you believe. I think this is pretty awesome.

There are so many things vying for our attention each day. If we aren’t careful, we can easily follow the crowd and waste so much time on “inferior and foolish entertainment,” as Epictitus puts it. But friends, we have the ability to fill our minds with wisdom. We can spend our time learning about topics that relate to our purpose and passions instead.

This doesn’t mean that I never indulge in entertainment. I love a good episode of “I Love Lucy!” But I think it is smart to spend the majority of our time working towards whatever we were put here for.

I think if we find ourselves being mindlessly entertained, we might not fully understand our purpose. When we find our purpose, we come alive! At the same time, we will probably find ourselves entertained more when we are lying in bed sick or going through a difficult emotional experience. There is nothing wrong with that.

I think consuming too much “mindless pap” can be an indication that we need to deal with something in our lives, usually on an emotional level. This happened to me last year. I walked through a hard experience. I started watching more television, reading more novels, and consuming more magazines to take my mind off of the problem.

After I realized what I was doing, I was able to take steps towards healing. My entertainment consumption was a wake up call that something was wrong.

Take heart, friends. We have important things to do! We can put mindless entertainment aside to do them.

Thanks so much for stopping by today. I hope you were encouraged!