Distraction is bigger disease than Covid-19 and Cancer
It is bigger because it is impacting much larger number of people than by Covid-19 and Cancer both put together. Covid-19 has affected approximately 10 4 M people around the world, of whom over 5.2M have recovered as of now on 25th June. According to World Health Organization, in 2018, 9.6 million people died of Cancer worldwide and based on projections, cancer deaths will continue to rise with an estimated 11.4 million dying in 2030. There were around 18 M new Cancer patients diagnosed in 2018 according to World Cancer data. There are more than 3.50 B users of smart phone and even if you assume 50% of them are infected with this disease called distraction and their daily productivity is affected by 5%, that is very significant. This affects from the state level leaders to the corporate leaders, executives, teachers, parents, and children both directly and indirectly.
Why I mean by distraction as a disease is people take conscious decisions but unable to focus in implementing those decisions simply due to distraction. According to the Oxford Dictionary a disease is “a disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, especially one that produces specific symptoms or that affects a specific location and is not simply a direct result of physical injury. ... 'The symptoms are not disease specific and the term does not suggest any cause for the symptoms. Therefore, I argue that distraction as a disorder in the logical thinking mind and could be considered as a disease. Distractions may be on a long term decision or short term one as simple as deciding to take a phone call to someone. Just take a moment to think how many of us take the phone to our hands to take a call to someone and then realise after a moment that we have kept the phone without taking that call. We did check some messages on the social media and spent a minute or two and just kept the phone back without taking that call. Suddenly realized that we did not take the call that wanted to but wasted a few minutes of our valuable time, just due to distraction. Many of us wake up with many plans for the day and or made plans on the previous night for the next day, but completely missed it due to various distractions. Now do you see, this distraction is a bigger disease than the Covid-19 and Cancer?
There is a growing debate amongst some scientists and politicians from different countries whether the Coronavirus was made in a Laboratory in the US or in China. However, this is still a debate and not substantiated yet by any side. On a different note, the Big Pharma conspiracy theory is a group of conspiracy theories that claim that the medical community in general and pharmaceutical companies in particular, especially large corporations, operate for sinister purposes and against the public good, and that they allegedly cause and worsen a wide range of diseases. It has been on debate for years that Cancer is not a disease but a business as well. These have been claims by various parties and there have been claims and arguments for and against and may be inconclusive.
However, the entire world knows that Companies such as YouTube, Google, Facebook and many social media platforms have assigned well paid professionals to research on how best to distract people and grab their attention to make money for them. Therefore, the biggest challenge for the human productivity today is Distraction which is purposefully spread beyond the level of control and people are driven addicted and sick.
Unfortunately, this is the world we are living in today, where the diseases are possibly, purposefully spread to make money for the few and the people involved in helping them are also part of the people who get into these diseases either consciously or unconsciously.
Today’s real distraction is not just social media. They are the medium or tool to distract but the real distractions are world politics, religions, business marketing and etc. The researchers of these large corporations know the sensitive areas to grab the attention of the people and especially the younger generation. They not only use some powerful feelings such as sex, fear, greed, pleasure and etc., but by creating a new trending culture towards which a large group of the new generation work force could be attracted as they have the smart phones. This is dangerous considering the health and productivity of the future generations.
The Million Dollar question is what’s the way out to save the future generation? Irrespective of the religious beliefs, economic statuses, political positions, and the cultural diversities, developing people to be more mindful is the only way out. What is being Mindful and how you can be Mindful is a deeper subject and an attempt is made to briefly outline here for the benefit of the readers.
Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us. While mindfulness is something we all naturally possess, it’s more readily available to us when we practice on a daily basis. Whenever you bring awareness to what you’re directly experiencing via your senses, or to your state of mind via your thoughts and emotions, you’re being mindful. And there’s growing research showing that when you train your brain to be mindful, you’re actually remodeling the physical structure of your brain.
Mindfulness is available to us in every moment, whether through meditations and body scans, or mindful moment practices like taking time to pause and breathe when the phone rings instead of rushing to answer it. “Mindfulness is awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally,” says Kabat-Zinn. “And then I sometimes add, in the service of self-understanding and wisdom.”
With Mindfulness you can exercise your “Power of Choice”. If you are mindful only, you will realise the power of choice. it is the power that every human being carries individually to decide on everything that he or she does including what to think and what not to think , and how to feel and how not to feel. Many of us have lost ourselves in this ocean of distraction just like a piece of wood floating in middle of the sea and thus ignored this Power that we possess. We are just carried away by the context and the millions of distractions that we encounter each day. Therefore, try to be mindful as long as possible is the only way out. The most important part of being mindful is the self realisation on the amount of distraction and purposeful attempt to minimise same.
Meditation, maintaining some amount of discipline in our day to day activities according to our purposes, plans and the daily habits including, food, physical exercises will help practicing mindfulness and to minimize the distraction.