Don’t think about purple cows.

Ever.

I mean it.

Stop that.

I know that right now, you have an image of a purple cow.

Strange.

It’s right there, in your head - a purple cow.

Don’t bite your nails.

You don’t need to.

Don’t go to the washroom right now.

You don’t need to.

Don’t eat a snack right now.

You don’t need to.

Don’t pick the scab.

Don’t pick your nose.

Don’t pick the scab in your nose.

You don’t need to.

You’ll likely be unhappy or annoyed with the result.

There are loads of things that we do that increase our stress and decrease our ability to experience the pleasure of our warmth, comfort, sense of peace and safety.

Don’t look at a car accident - unless you’re a paramedic, fire fighter, cop, or other profession set up to deal with the job.

There’s nothing to be gained by rubbernecking. Feeling bad because someone was mangled in the car crash does nothing to help people in the car crash. In fact, it brings you into that hellscape.

Next?

The news - whether on your phone, the television or a tablet. Watching suffering does nothing to eliminate suffering.

There is a lot of pain, anger, hostility and aggression in the world. People are neither fundamentally good, or fundamentally bad. We have the capacity for great good and the capacity for great evil.

Watching a reminder of this is likely good for our humility.

Immersing ourselves in the pain and suffering of war doesn’t bring peace in my heart. Nor does it bring peace into the hearts of those trapped by the whims of the really smart, wonderful, highly evolved, absolutely perfect people who are running this shit.

This is a message to myself that I’m sharing with you. War porn does nothing but add to the suffering. Engaging with ‘the news’ is not about getting information. It’s war porn. And it is addictive. Turn off the television. Put down the phone. And turn off the internet. Unless of course you have family members or close friends affected.

In which case, tune in to them, my heart goes out to you and them.

It’s like the old saying goes:

It’s difficult not to imagine a purple cow when someone mentions a purple cow.