>While there are probably as many advantages as there are disadvantages to the internet and related technologies, I think the one that causes the greatest stress, and does the most damage, is the one least talked about. The media, through technology, constantly brings into our personal lives events and news that are not actually occurring in our lives in real time. The damage that results from this onslaught is not only constant, it’s repetitive.
  Take, for example, the daily events in Iraq.  While it’s true that we are at war, and equally true that the ravages of war occur on a daily basis, they are none-the-less not occurring daily in our personal lives. Yet through the internet and television our own lives, which are already overloaded by stressors much closer to home, have the added burden of needing to process tragic events not immediately relevant to the tasks we have at hand.
    I’m not saying we shouldn’t care about events and suffering occurring outside the perimeter of our immediate lives and environments. Compassion is the hallmark of an enlightened Being. What I am saying is that all we can handle at any given moment is what is immediately in front of us in that given moment. And while the internet and TV are a great example of how we get distracted and seduced and manipulated by fear, they are both just external manifestations of what we do to ourselves internally within our own minds.
    When we linger in negative thoughts of the past or long for imagined futures, we too are distracting ourselves from the only thing that matters…the moment at hand…by living in realities that are no longer a part of our immediate and present experience. There is so much value in the adage that “the past is gone and the future is not yet here.” Unable to change the past or participate in the future before it’s time, what a waste to miss the infinite potential of this moment mired in one or the other.
    Our tendency to be past or future oriented has to do with discomfort. The past is known and the future can be anything we imagine…but this moment is the true unknown. It’s the unknown that makes us so uncomfortable. Just look at how we respond to differences in race, culture, gender, or the whole subject of death. We react with our defenses up and our denials fully turned on precisely because what we do not know makes us uncomfortable. Yet, we all have one thing in common. We all run from the very thing we want most, for it’s only in the unknown potential of the moment that connection, unity and a sense of oneness can be fully experienced.
    So, whether it’s too much time on the internet, or too much TV, or longing for days gone by, or wishing for days to come…all are escapes from and avoidance of the sense of purpose that can only be had by fully living in the moment.
    Funny thing about the moment. It’s followed by another moment and then another and another. So, once you can perfect living fully engaged in each moment as it is occurring, you will find yourself alive in the way you were created to be…in the image and likeness of a power and source that endlessly recreates and experiences itself and all we are… moment by moment.

   
    

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