Apr 09 2009
The First is Often the Last
If you’re reading this, then that obviously draws me to the conclusion that you’re reading my blog. If so, I would like to thank you for dropping by and checking it out. Chances are I’ll post about many different subjects. I lack a distinct direction in life, and I’m certain my blog will reflect that. For my first post, I’d like to talk about something that I hope doesn’t happen to this blog! The idea is trying something once and then leaving it at that.
Now, I’d like to start by saying that I’m a huge culprit of this. My interests are incredibly varied, so I’ll often have an intense passion for something one week and completely lose interest in it in a matter of days, usually just to pick something else up. But I don’t believe myself excessively unique. People seem to be getting shorter and shorter attention spans these days and we get bored of anything far too quickly. We simply don’t have the patience and perseverance that people used to, it seems we’ve lost something along the way.
What’s the cause of this, one would ask? I don’t believe there’s many questions in this world that can be narrowed down to any one answer. However, I believe one of the greatest factors would be our materialistic society and the quickening pace at which it goes. We’re surrounded by so many different objects of various sizes, shapes, colours and uses that it seems hardly possible to stay focused on just one thing. The entertainment industry certainly contributes too. It has molded us into people who must be entertained at all times to be happy. It seems if we’re not watching television, we’ve got to be watching or playing something. Television in particle has practically eroded family conversation, which I assume was one of the main sources of entertainment in times past.
However, what I think is most probably the biggest contributing factor would be the advertising industry. I’m certain I’ll speak at lengths about the advertising industry frequently, as I’m quite opposed to it. Advertising’s main goal is instilling in its viewers the feeling of lack. We lack things, we lack fun, we lack joy. We see the people on the screen, or billboard or what have you enjoying life so much now that they’ve got this fancy new product, so it triggers a response in our minds that associates that or any object with happiness. So it goes that we feel unhappy if we don’t have something to make us happy, or if we’re not doing something to make us happy. We can’t just be happy, right? In addition to that, the ad industry is very fast-paced. Ads change very often. Most big companies frequently change their ads, sometimes even monthly, to try and find that new flashy ad that’ll get them some more customers. After being subjected to it for years, I believe we honestly just start having a faster mindset. Things need to happen fast, things always need to change and be on the go. As a result our attention spans are short, and our boredom factor high.
People simply don’t stick to what they start as much as they used to. They get too distracted by the myriad things in everyday life. With so many things to do, why stick to just one? I think that we all need to find the discipline and perseverance that we as people once had. We need to learn to narrow our attention spans, lower our boredom factors and laziness, really. When we set out to do something, we need to stop giving up. And so, here’s hoping I’ll take my own advice, and be back for another post.
- South
