Hi everyone. Welcome to this episode of Ignition Time.
It's been a while since I've been out here in my backyard and I actually started
doing videos in my backyard during the pandemic.
The sun is actually shining in my eyes,
but it's been a while since I did videos in my backyard, and I started doing these
videos out here in the middle of the pandemic.
And then I think when the pandemic ended, I moved into my indoor studio.
I have a really fancy schmancy studio set up and I can mix up the videos to provide you guys content.
And I'm going to do that but I figured it'd be a nice
change of scene for me to go
back out here in my backyard.
And welcome to this episode of Ignition Time.
My name is Dr. Nitin Chhoda.
Thank you so much for being a viewer and subscriber.
In this video, I'm going to talk to you about
why the news media is bad for our emotional health.
As you know, there's a lot of negative news out there.
Every YouTube channel you see talks about
the coming stock market crash or
the coming housing crash or the coming recession.
And how your savings are going to
be worth nothing because bad news actually sells.
That's just the way things are.
Bad news does sell.
You're not going to get a YouTube
channel, get a lot of views if the YouTube channel talks about positivity and
staying calm, because that's just boring.
Unfortunately, we live in a climate, we live in a news environment where we're
so numb, we're so desensitized to negative
information that the only thing that gets
our attention is more negative information.
In fact, I'm going to show you
this article on your screen from the New York Times and let me pull
it up on my phone, why Strangers Are Good for us.
And this is a pretty fascinating article that I came across in the New
york Times, and essentially the author of
the article says that, and I'm going to quote from the article
because this author lives in New York City.
Not so long ago, it was impossible to go
through life without speaking in some way to a variety of strangers in your life.
The bus driver, barista, security guard, receptionist,
butcher, government clerks, store cashier and
restaurant server were all humans
who required at least a bare minimum of conversation.
If you were at a playground a generation ago, halfheartedly watching some swing set
drama, ignoring the casual greetings of another parent would be extremely rude.
And the author goes on to say, and this is really important.
When I lived in New York City a decade ago, I couldn't spend ten
minutes outside without speaking to someone.
That's the thing I loved about the
place, how New Yorkers will kibitz and comment and carry on a conversation
in line for pizza on the sidewalk or in the subway, ask for directions.
Or compliment a particularly awesome hat of
someone that they had not ever met without any awkwardness.
Now, in case you're thinking, well, I don't live in New York City, what
does this have to do with me?
It has everything to do with the entire, it has everything, folks, to do
with the entire Western culture.
It has everything to do with the world in fact.
As many of you may
or may not know,
I was actually born in India, and I moved to the United States of America in 2002.
So I can tell you that this.
Phenomenon of progressive isolation, progressive discontent with
the general news media is making its way
not just through American culture, but through all cultures.
Now, this is important.
This is what the author continues to say about New York City.
Toda you can spend a week in New York shopping, traveling, eating, and working
and never utter a word to another human being or even take your headphones off.
So what is the point I'm trying to get at?
The general news media, and in fact, our general
environment has become so negative.
The general news media and the general environment has
become so negative that we have become desensitized to it.
In other words,
we simply ignore the general news media because the general news media
we recognize instinctively is bad for our emotional well being.
And in case you've been a regular
follower of my channel, this channel, the Ignition Time Channel,
is about the country, the economy, as well as our money.
But the only way you can be
in sync, if you will, with the world, the only way that you can
get through this crazy world that we
live in is if you are balanced
emotionally, physically, socially, spiritually, and intellectually.
And I think that now more than
ever, now that we are in a
post COVID world, now that inflation is
becoming a problem for everyone, rising interest
rates are causing all sorts of problems in terms of borrowing, gas prices at
an all time high, food costs more.
And even though you may be making more money, you simply can't afford gas.
I read comments from viewers and subscribers who are saying
that they're actually sleeping at work because they can't afford to pay for gas.
So the general news media is contributing to this.
I want you to know that this entire
situation we find ourselves now, I believe, is worse than COVID.
Yes, I said that.
You see, COVID was a sudden, dangerous,
physical manifestation of something we couldn't control.
But now I think what is emerging all over the country is not just
loneliness and isolation in a post COVID
world because COVID made it dangerous to talk to strangers.
And by the way, this article that
I referenced earlier from The New York Times, I'll show you this article on your screen again.
This article talks about the importance
of random interactions with strangers, which is
good for our mental and emotional health.
In other words, this is part of that social component of balance.
Emotionally, we need to have friends, even random interactions with strangers
if you don't have a lot of friends.
That is good for our emotional health.
And now we don't have random interactions with strangers.
If anything, we're busy on our phones, we're busy, we're busy creating these self
fulfilling prophecies for us.
I've been guilty of that myself.
I've talked about this previously on our channel.
I was so busy and focused on work in 2021
that I essentially didn't spend much time with my mother, who
was living with me, and then my mother passed away, and then I've been
trying to deal with that.
So I think that the general news media has
actually made things worse by focusing on negativity, by focusing on politics,
by focusing on Trump and Biden, by focusing on how bad things are.
I also think that at the end
of the day, each one of us
should be responsible for our own emotional well being.
Do things that elevate you, do things
that essentially puts you in a situation
where you engineer positive conversations with people around you.
It can be people you know, it can be friends.
You've got to stop talking with individuals
You've got to be able to initiate random interactions with strangers.
Who knows what you put on?
And I want to focus this video
on the emotional well being component of it.
Because the emotional wellbeing is a huge part of how you'll be able to get
through the rest of this year and how you'll be able to
set the stage for the remainder of your life.
I think that a lot of us are focusing on money right now, rightfully so.
But at some point, the money problems tend to end.
They tend to cycle through.
You may have less money today, you may have more money next year.
You may lose the money, you may gain the money.
But the one thing that's never going to change is your perception of yourself,
your self confidence, your self belief, your inner drive.
And all of those things require constant nurturing.
Like all these trees behind me
they require constant nurturing.
They require sunlight, they require water, they require nutrients from the soil.
So you've got to be able to
feed those things to your brain.
I want you, I want you to do everything you possibly can to try
and take care of yourself mentally, to try and take care of yourself emotionally.
So that you can be in the right frame of mind going forward.
And I think a huge part of
that is just to ignore general news media and please subscribe to channels like
mine so that I can help you
get to the next level in your life.
Thank you.
I hope this video was helpful. Please comment below.
Let me know what you think.
I'm looking forward to seeing you in the next episode of Ignition Time.
Take care, bye.