Day 226: Please! Stop with the Advertising!!!

 

 

It is everywhere – Ads have managed their way into almost every part of our daily lives. When I Was a kid the only Ads I saw was on TV. Most of my free time was spent playing outside so when we were young were not bombarded with the magnitude of Ads people see today.

We do not have a TV anymore, but I still see plenty ads everyday even though I live on a farm. When I turn on my radio in the car – There are Ads. As I drive through town – There are Ads. When I am on Facebook – there are Ads. When I look at news on the Internet – There are Ads. When I do a Google Search – There are Ads. When I download a free app for my phone – There are Ads. Checking emails – Spam Ads. Receiving SMS – Spam Ads.

It’s really getting out of hand. As a kid when I went to watch a movie on the big screen the only Ads they showed were future releases of movies. Now there are all kinds of Advertisements before the movie even starts. They are even Advertising in Schools! On School buses, in gymnasiums, on book covers, and even in bathroom stalls.

“School advertising also appears under the guise of educational TV: Channel One. Currently available in 12 000 schools, Channel One consists of 10 minutes of current-events programming and 2 minutes of commercials. Advertisers pay $200 000 for advertising time and the opportunity to target 40% of the nation's teenagers for 30 seconds.⁸⁹ According to a recent government report, Channel One now plays in 25% of the nation's middle and high schools⁸¹ and generates profits estimated at $100 million annually.^{89” - http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/118/6/2563.full}

Sneaky – Very Sneaky. Now a days when a child has the ability to hold a cellular device or tablet they are exposed to many, many advertisements. That’s children as young as 2 or 3 years old that are already being targeted al for companies to make profit. And Advertisements have become extremely effective over the years – you see it and you are like “YES – I NEED THAT”, but you did not need it before you watched the Ad.

The problem is that children and people are not educated on how Advertising works – How it plays the emotions and feelings and how it actually directs you to do what the ad tells you to. Before you can do that you need to understand how emotions and feelings direct you and to see how you are actually not the one who directs your life. How do you do that? Find out in my next blog.

Day 225: Do Celebs have responsibilities as Role Models?

 

 

"Children as young as nine are determined to get a tan this summer, a study has revealed.

The study of 1,000 youngsters, aged from nine to 16 years, found just under half believe getting a tan this summer is important to them with many using various tricks to maximise their sun exposure.

Not applying any sun cream, sitting out in the midday sun and applying baby oil were some of the methods adopted by image-conscious children in order to get a tan. Other tricks include rolling up the arms and legs of their school uniform, using a tan accelerator and wearing as few clothes as possible.

The study to highlight its summer skin cancer education campaign found a third of nine to 16-year-olds regularly sunbathe in their back garden and 14 per cent said they were likely to try and catch the rays in the school playing fields."

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2660119/Children-young-NINE-determined-tan-attempt-copy-bronzed-celebrities-lie-parents-wearing-sunscreen.html#ixzz34vV38xCE

This isn’t really something new. This is all about the perceived idea of what beauty is. This is what happens when Magazines and celebrities target a specific group of people like Teenagers. Advertisements are placed all to get people to buy their product. Children look up to these people and the corporations know this and found very effective ways to exploit it all to make money.

 

A tanned skin is in fact a burnt skin, but it is being advertised as being “good looking”. There are so many products out there to help with getting tanned – all because of the belief and perception of what beauty is. The problem is much bigger than just a sun tan.

 

Celebrities are seen by these teenagers as “Role Models”. That means that they look up to these people and want to be like them – unfortunately These “ Role Models” set a very bad example. Look at Miley for example – what does she stand for exactly? Sex and exploitation. Its Teenagers listening to her music and watching her and wanting to be like her – what sort of generation of people are going to come out of this? There many examples of “Celebrities” that set a very bad example and is in fact the exact opposite of a role model and its simply unacceptable. They are ruining people’s lives by influencing them all just for profit.

 

Being a role model comes with a great responsibility, because your actions have consequences that affect many people’s lives. It is time that “celebrities” understand this point and stop doing what they are doing only for profit. The funny about that is if they do stop they will not be making money anymore. Many blame the celebrities and the parents – the parents for not educating their children to stop worshipping fake people. All parties involved are Responsible – the “role models”, the companies behind them, the children being targeting and the parents of the children.

Right now there is not much you can do about the celebs and the companies profiteering, but parents and children can get to a point where they are no longer influenced by advertisements. To be able to be self-directed and not directed by anything outside yourself and to be able to see what is real and what is beliefs and ideas and perceptions. To understand why you are so easily manipulated is key to self-development. Find out how here

The 2014 FIFA World CUP Brazil - Why we should Stop Hosting Events.

 

 

“People in Brazil are absolutely delighted that they are hosting the World Cup in 2014, but what they are saying is -- if we can have world-standard football stadiums, why can't we have world-standard housing, world-standard healthcare, world-standard education?" Clare Dixon, from the UK Catholic Agency for Overseas Development said.”

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2013/09/13/Brazil-poverty-overshadows-hype-over-World-Cup-Olympics/UPI-34041379093556/#ixzz34dvbIrRY

The football Hype is on – the 2014 World Cup has already started and millions of fans are watching. People either in Brazil screaming inside the newly built stadiums or people watching their TV’s all over the world.

Here in South Africa the 2010 World cup left us with massive expensive stadiums that cannot bring in enough profit to cover the maintenance cost. People are demanding to have the Cape Town Stadium demolished, because it is costing the citizens who are the tax payers. There were many allegations of corruption when it came to building those stadiums – it seems that the money spent to build some of them was far too much and nobody knows where the actual money went. A total of $3 billion was spent.

Communities were promised that they will benefit from the world cup – that the government will not only spend money on getting the stadiums built, but also help the people and give them better housing and access to clean drinking water – that did not happen. Allot of the communities said that they just built the stadiums and left.

The upgrade and improvements on roads and transport did help with the increased traffic of tourists, but now we are stuck with transport that was designed for tourists to travel on. The price of the transport thus increased and many South Africans cannot afford it. We are actually still paying for all the renovations made with this increase in price for transport.

The Jobs that were created was only for the duration of the world cup – the world cup left and took the jobs with it. So the questions is how did the general population of South Africa Benefit from the 2010 FIFA world cup – we did not. FIFA made a hefty profit – along with politicians, the government and massive construction companies.

Brazil is going down the same path – we have seen the protest. How can you justify spending over $11.3 billion on a sporting event? That money can be used to improve the lives of the people. To make Brazil a better place for its people. Instead it is used for entertainment, when the World cup is over how will the people benefit? They won’t. FIFA will walk away with millions.

It seems we have our priorities all wrong. Shouldn’t the well-being of people come first over entertainment? Should we not care for and find solutions for those who do not have anything instead of evicting them from homes to make space for a sporting event. We should not be hosting Events in a country unless that country has every citizen out of poverty. IMPOSSIBLE!!! People will say. With a Living Income Guaranteed it IS possible – this will eradicate poverty. People will then have enough income to actually live and not just survive.

Day 223: Doing something to the best of your ability

 

I'm going to share another perspective on the point of living your full potential. In a blog, which you can read here, I wrote a more general point on realizing and living your utmost potential. Today I am going to give some examples of practical application and how I applied this in my life.

Living your utmost potential is like doing something to the best of your ability. I have said this many times in blogs - that I was always a person who took the easy route in terms of work, did the least amount of effort required to complete a task. Since walking this process that all changed.

The first opportunity I had to change this about myself was working with my hands. What is cool about "getting down to earth" and getting your hands dirty with good old physical work is that when you are done with it you can actually see what you did. For example: The first time I worked with bricks, we had a bath put in by plumbers so we needed to brick it up and I decided ill give it a go. I remember it took me the whole day to do this, mostly because it was a new thing so as I built it layer by layer and a got to my 4th layer I noticed that the 3rd layer was out of line. So i could have left it as it was, but that 3rd layer would not be in line with the rest of the mini wall and the thing about a wall is that it would be there for many many years - every time I look at it I would see it was not built properly, in the end I dismantled the 4th and 3rd layer started again.

Working with bricks and cement and concrete - when you are done it is a permanent thing so I wanted to make sure that every time a look at the finished product I want to to be able to say that I did my best. And always the next time I worked on a similar task like throwing and leveling a concrete floor I looked for ways to improve and make it better than the last one I did.

It was a cool experience and opportunity for me to improve myself by always doing something to the best of my ability - my utmost potential. And I did this with many tasks ranging from roofing to fencing to tree planting - finding ways to it better and improve my skills.

Day 222: How do I become self Responsible?

 

I am continuing with expanding on the points in the document that can be found here:

5. Living the principle of Self Responsibility – realizing only I am responsible for what I accept and allow inside of me, my relationships and my outside world and so with this responsibility: only I have the power and ability to change that which I see is compromising who I am, what I live and how this affects others.

Here the focal point is self responsibly. So what is self-responsibility exactly and how do you live it?

First thing to see realize here is that everything that goes on within you – every action and reaction, all words spoken and all the thoughts, feelings and emotions are all created by yourself. An example: You are a school kid and during class break a group of people laugh at you and start teasing you. This makes you angry. At home you say to yourself “they made me so angry I wanted to hit them!”. The question here is where did that anger come from? Did the other people have some kind of magic power to reach within you and create that anger within you? No. IN the end YOU were the one who actually created that anger all by yourself. Therefor it is not the other people who are to blame for making you angry, because you are the one responsible for yourself.

This can be applied to any other feeling or emotion or thought. In the end no one else has the power to make you feel anything – you alone are responsible for yourself and what happens within you.

What is cool about this particular principle is that blaming people becomes obsolete. Whenever I am in a situation where I took something personally – I realize that I am the one who allowed myself to take it personally and what I feel has nothing to do with the other person. We tend to want to “get back” at those who wronged us, believing that the only way we will feel better is if we “have our revenge”. There is a saying that goes something like “ Being angry at someone is like drinking poison and thinking the other person will die”. In the end you are only compromising yourself.

I alone am responsible for what I accept and allow inside of me and thus only I have the power and ability to change that. We all want somebody to save us – to make us feel better and take away all our problems. We do not want to see the reality of the situation – that I alone have the power and ability to change myself. So if we take the example of you being the kid being teased in school – what you realize there is that you are the one who created the anger. First step is to find the reason why the anger was created and then deal with the anger so that next time the teasing will not affect you.

This is how you stop being directed and start being Self-directed. And this can be applied with any other thought, feeling and emotion. This is how self-responsibility is lived – to never blame another person for what is happening within you, because you realize that you alone are the one responsible for everything within you and thus it is up to you to give it all Direction and not expect others to do it for you.

 

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