Impact of Negative News on Mindset: Mind the Wishing Tree
One day, I was talking with a friend about how things were going in life. What started as a simple catch-up surprisingly turned into a deep, macro-level conversation about existence and mindset of different generations. We are all living life, but we aren’t all living in reality.
He mentioned that a friend of his felt there was no hope left to look forward to—simply no future. He cited the rising crime rates across the country, environmental degradation, peak corruption, collapsing infrastructure, leaked exam papers, high inflation, and global wars.
Yes, everything he mentioned is factual. However, it is also true that the impact of negative news on the human mind is magnified tenfold. What I mean is that while reality is undoubtedly tough, the virtual reality our minds construct makes it feel even tougher.
The mind is an interesting organ; however you mold it, it starts feeding you information that reinforces that perspective. The truth is, life has always been this way. Every generation has had its share of struggles in trying to make the world a better place, and more importantly, in solving their inner conflicts.
We have to understand the duality of nature. Everything has both a positive and a negative impact on mindset. The more you focus on positivity, the further negativity falls behind. The same applies to hope. For the person who actively seeks hope, hopelessness is kept at a distance. But the moment our minds let go of hope, hopelessness immediately takes over.
The Wishing Mindset
A man named Sameer mistakenly wandered into a garden at night. Due to the pitch-black darkness, he couldn’t navigate his way out and decided to spend the night there. He sat down under a tree to rest.
After some time, he felt thirsty. Suddenly, a jug of water appeared beside him. A while later, he felt hungry, and in the next moment, he saw a plate full of food lying next to him. He ate and then went to sleep. Later that night, he woke up thinking about his life, wishing he had 10 lakh rupees to secure his future. Suddenly, a bag containing 10 lakh rupees materialized before him.
Now he grew suspicious. Everything he wished for was coming true. Why was this happening, and who was doing it? He began to panic, thinking, “Is there a demon luring me with gifts who now wants to take my life?” And because he thought it, a demon appeared and took his life.
Sameer had been sitting under a wishing tree. Whatever he thought of became reality simply because of the tree. It is an old story, but it holds a very valuable lesson: our mind is like that wishing tree. The more positive views you feed it, the more positive your reality feels. The more negative thoughts you plant, the more negative your reality becomes.
Moving between the polarities of positive and negative is part of human nature. No matter which side you pour your energy into, once it reaches an extreme, the mind naturally swings back in the opposite direction like a pendulum. That is why we are constantly moving back and forth.
But the moment you stop feeding it both emotions then there is no mind. It is hard thing to understand than doing. No mind is the only place where a peace can come. Therefore, we have to save our mind and thoughts from negative news that are impacting our mindset negatively.
End Note
Life is hard from ancient times, we have to accept it as it is and then work our way through it. Having hope or not has never work for any person to be peaceful. Material world can really bring some solace into your mind but it is not the end goal.
Life is mysterious and we all can have happiness and peace in life just we have to understand how to live it in present. The present is the only time we can live and live fully with awareness. Buddha has always said, become the work you want to do then work will not feel work anymore. Everything is a play; we have to perform our act and perform it in fullest. Live, live and live in the present. Now, is the only time we have, next moment nobody knows what is going to happen.