Well, my apologies. I didn't really think this series out when I started it. I just started writing. Now here we are and I've let the negativity of our economic woes fester for over a week now. No good. Truth be told, I was in the Dominican Republic last week soaking up a lot of dem positive vibrations. I wasn't about to be blogging on vacation.

A lot of people have commented to me about the title clashing with the content and I agree with the critique. There hasn't been much positivity emanating from this blog. I will get to that today. However, there is one more aspect I'd like to touch briefly on and that is the media as a whole.

The system we deal with really covers all aspects of life, but the media might be the most harmful to us. I'm not sure people realize how much of an influence media has on them. I didn't. It's especially true for people such as us poker players that are constantly plugged in. For the last 10 years, I've spent nearly all day listening to an iPod, on a computer or watching TV. I was nearly always open to influence from whoever I gave my time to. It wasn't until recently that I started to look at what I was putting into my head and how it was impacting my views and moods.

A small group of corporations/people control the majority of the media. They have an agenda. Everyone has an agenda. I believe their overall agenda is to divert our attention from real issues by using propaganda. Whoever is in charge wants to see a dumbed down public. I don't think many people would even argue with this point. Listen to the lyrics of popular music, the coverage of meaningless stories in the news, the extreme prevalence of garbage like Jersey Shore on TV. Does society inherently go in that direction or are we being directed that way? At a minimum they are speeding up the pace in that direction to hyper drive. A hell of a lot more people care about what Snooki is doing than if we are entering a 3rd war or going broke as a country. That's a fucking travesty. Like I said, I'm as guilty as anyone. Look at the single website I have linked on the right side of my blog. For a long time, I cared a lot more about what celebrities were doing more than what was going on in the real world.

Music is extremely important because there is so much power there. People listen to songs over and over and over without actually listening to the message. You may think that you're above being influenced by the lyrics of a song, but I urge you to think twice about that. Music is one of the main movers that enabled our culture to put so much value in money, sex and violence. We are told money is the #1 thing in the world and that we should worship money above all else. Even if you still don't think it influences you, it sure as hell is influencing the children in this country. They spend their days listening to Lil Wayne and killing people in video games. I'm sorry, but that has an impact on their views in life.

There's so much to be said about the media and a lot of it sounds crazy as hell, so I really don't want to dive too deep into it. The main point I'm trying to drive home here is to always take a step back and think about what you're putting in your brain. I also don't want it to be construed that I'm saying don't listen to Lil Wayne or play violent video games. I'm by no means saying that. Just understand what messages you're pumping into your head and go from there. Ultimately, those in charge don't want us thinking for ourselves. The sad thing is that once you do start to think for yourself, you realize how fucked up this world is. That's where my road to positivity comes in.

I've been making a lot of minor changes in my life lately that I think have really helped me. There is no quick fix to overcoming the overbearing system that we live with. The key is to realize it's there and to slowly make progress away from dependence on it.

I've been a slave to technology for awhile now. I'm one of those guys constantly checking his phone, always on the internet or watching TV. It's sad. It wasn't until recently when I started to back off it, that I realized what I've been missing. I've missed on out social situations because I've been checking my phone instead. I took a 2-3 year break from playing guitar because fucking around on the Internet was more fun. There was a long period where I never read a book except for an occasional nonsense John Grisham book on vacation. I know I'm not alone in this. A lot of my friends are the same way. One of my favorite examples is Guitar Hero. I have a number of friends that are incredibly good at that game. With the time they spent, they could have become damn good REAL guitar players. Now they never play guitar hero and that time was completely wasted.

I've been working on making a conscious effort to unplug and spend time doing things to better myself. Some of these things are:

• Address spirituality in my life. I was raised Catholic, but I've ignored God for far too long. I'm spending a lot of time and effort searching for what the real answers are here. I do feel like I have a renewed relationship with God and I want that to grow as much as possible.
• Do yoga first thing everyday when I wake up. I highly recommend people try this. Getting your blood flowing early in the morning really makes a huge difference. My flexibility has increased and I just feel better about myself. Being consistently active has countless positive impacts on your life from anywhere to mental state to fighting diseases.
• Alter the music I listen to. I listen to music literally all day. By eliminating most of the negative music and adding more positive music, I've noticed myself in better moods a lot more often. I'm not saying I'll never listen to some of the mindless rap I used to, but I don't want it on loop on my iPod. Subbing out Lil Wayne's worship of money with Bob Marley's devotion to peace, harmony and unity definitely makes a difference for me.
• Challenge myself with activities not related to technology. I've been playing guitar a ton lately. I used to play a lot in high school and completely got away from it. It's been really fun rededicating myself. I'm planning on playing a ton of golf this summer as well. Poker/laziness/TV have taken a big chunk out of my golf time the last few years. I'm going to play every chance I can get this year.
• Read inspirational/educational books. For instance, I just finished reading MLK Jr's autobiography. Wow. It's one of the most fascinating and inspiring books I've ever read. Replacing time spent watching junk TV with reading books like that can't do anything but good.

None of these things on their own are life changing. However, if you make enough small changes, you can really do some damage. That's the approach I'm trying to take. These are just a few things I've been working on. I have plenty of other ideas to introduce positivity and that's what I intend to address going forward with this blog. I just wanted to get my story out there so that people could understand where I'm coming from.

I hope people don't take this blog the wrong way. I'm not trying to tell anyone how to live their life. I'm simply trying to help people wake up to what I think the world really is and to tell them what I've done to help make my life better. If I can get one person to question things and make changes, then this blog was a success. For the world to change, we can only start small and hope it grows, because lord knows the change won't come from those in power.

I feel my foundation is growing everyday. It wasn't there 2 years ago and I didn't even know it. We have very hard times coming. This country is broken in a lot of ways and the path to redemption isn't going to be easy. The good news is that we can overcome the nonsense that is thrown at us and the hardships we're going to face. Let's all better ourselves now to be prepared for anything that comes tomorrow.

edit: Just saw this quote on my twitter feed and thought it was worth adding:
"If we make a steady effort, I think we can overcome any form of negative conditioning and make positive changes in our lives." - Dali Lama

Peace be with you,
Andrew