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Emotions and Beliefs

As a psychologist, I contemplate a great deal about why people behave in certain ways and how people actually choose their beliefs. I watched the film "Wag the Dog" yesterday with Dustin Hoffman & Robert De Niro about a film producer being hired by a spin doctor for the USA president to divert attention away from his scandalous affairs before an upcoming election. A fictitious war in Albania is created and the emotions of the general public are aroused and manipulated in order to persuade them to use their "freedom to vote in a democracy"....in democracies, the person, or team of people with the most powerful persuasion skills gets the most votes....However, historians and psychologists will tell you that human beings can be persuaded to believe the most absurd fantasies and propagandas. This may be one of the reasons highly successful people spend less time reading newspapers or watching TV.

Yesterday, I was with a millionaire acquaitance who charges £5,000 for 4 hours coaching (successful?) and one of the tips for success he gave, along with other millionaires there, was to get rid of our TVs and to stop reading the newspapers....I can't say I am going to sell my TV (I love my soaps! :)) but the logic is that if you give up 2 hours TV per day for a whole year, you have given yourself a whole month of extra time available....

Stuart Wilde, author of "God's Gladiators"Stuart Wilde, author of "God's Gladiators" (and also a millionaire) reiterates the point, albeit in a different context:

"The point of 'news' is to drip feed you fear and to offer you endless problems you can't fix. The idea is to generate a steady stream of helpnessnes, ensuring that you accept the idea that you are powerless - that the fat controllers know best. It ensures that you buy the idea that someone important is running the show, someone you must defer to and respect. Of course, politics is nothing more than the externalisation of your mind and its desire to control you and those around you to make it feel safer. Give away the TV, ignore the papers........." page 24, "God's Gladiators by Stuart Wilde""God's Gladiators by Stuart Wilde" I attended a lecture by Stuart Wilde in the 80s and didn't like him....I still don't like him or his books but I will read them out of interest to see where the boundaries are between what I choose to believe and NOT believe...can be an interesting process! :)

However, there seems to be a consensus amongst millionaires that if you are sleeping more than 4-6 hours per night, your energy is being drained somehow....if you sleep 8 hours/night, going to bed an hour later than usual and waking up an hour earlier will give you an extra month of time over a year.

Whether you choose to accept these tips and believe that the TV and newspapers can manipulate our emotions and drain our energy will determine your behaviour and habits. Personally, I like TV and I like my sleep.....and I am not as "successful" as the millionaires I am writing about.....maybe there's a clue! :)

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