What do all people have in common: children and adults, rich and poor, men and women? Despite the obvious resemblance between us, the answer lies behind the scenes, behind what we all try to forget and to hide with our masks. We are addicted! Every single one of us. We overuse addiction in order to make ourselves feel better when in fact, we all are faking what we are and we are turning into individuals who cannot think for themselves and cannot be what they really are without the help of other things.
Even if initially the term addiction was used to define people who used to take drugs or other substances in order to feel better, to be what they wanted to be and to illustrate another universe where they could live their lives the way they wanted, the signification of this word has crossed the border and has turned into a disease we all face at the moment. Although the main forms of addiction are caused by drugs, alcohol, narcotics, cigarettes, we are facing other addictions that we may not be aware of.
To begin with, we have to open our eyes and see what the world is really like. Open your eyes wide. What do you see? You see what others make you see. Why? Because the media is controlling and manipulation us and makes us see a different reality. Try to have a conversation with a random person from the street. Wait! You may want to ask for his id messenger or you may want to see the Facebook profile. Give the children a toy. Watch them play. Surprise again! They are throwing it away because they want to play on the computer. Try team work. This is another thing you cannot see nowadays because everything is done either by machines or by people who work at home or work for themselves in separate offices.
This is our problem. Being addicted to something makes us live in our own world. So, taking every individual and putting him of her in the society means having thousands of universes reigned by addiction itself. The world is full of parallel universes and full of controlled individuals. Identifying the problem is not enough. But it is the first thing we can do in order to overcome this crisis. Let’s face it! We are all addicted to something.
Now try to think how that addiction affects your life. Media makes you think what they show, makes you think that in this world there are only crimes and bad things because this is what we see at the news, newspapers influence the way you perceive things and reading interviews with pop stars and actors makes you see them as a model and therefore makes you think the way they do, forgetting what is important for you and what you stand for. The fact that technology has developed over the years, meant the enormous advantage of being able to talk and actually see a person that is miles away from you. But as a drawback, we are turned into machines and smiley faces on the messenger while we spend our whole day chatting on the internet instead of meeting the people we are talking to. As a result, we lose our ability to communicate and to have actual relationships with people.
While we are facing the challenge to speak in public or to try to be empathic, we fail because we cannot use emoticons in real life and it is there when we have to face the problems not click x on the message box. When a child wants to play he or she plays on the computer, and plays for hours because the games full of violence is what thrills children. Why do they act as they see in games? Because this is what we all want them to see? Also, when we put people together and give them a task, they fail. Why did they fail? Because everyone has an opinion and not being able to get to a compromise means working for you and not for the team.
As obvious as it seems, the problem has been explained. To tell the truth, facing the problem is not the biggest leap one can do in order to overcome. But it is the beginning of all the solutions that can be found and put in practice. Although addiction is something people have been facing over the past years, we were not entirely able to stand up and point out to outstanding solution. Because the solution lies in ourselves and we cannot come with revolutionary solutions but with long term solution that will prove efficient.
What I am trying to point out is the fact that we do not need others to tell us how to overcome our addiction, we have to be strong and take the lead. We are important and free. We do not need internet to talk to people, we do not need media to tell us what to think, and the children do not need computers because there are a lot of other games. This is what is called ideal world. But unfortunately, the world we live in is not perfect and ideal.
But there is a small glitter of truth in the last paragraph. We are the solution to the problem. It lays in our attitude towards things in life. It lays in our way of seeing things and living our life. We need to begin to live our lives traditionally. No phone, no newspapers, no rush hour, no nothing. This is when we will start to realize that we love what we have. And this is when the hard path begins.
Not being able to hide between curtains of lies and altered realities and having to face the whole world, this is the real challenge. And as hard as it may seem, we have to go beyond the imaginary limits we think we have and try to live on our own, without media, trying to think for ourselves having an opinion about something. Going to the theatre and seeing a play without reading a review of the play before, trying to write ourselves a review of the play. Going and talking to people about different things and problems. Speaking in public and speaking our mind, saying the most stupid thing that ever crossed our minds. This is when we will realize that we are free. And we are free to think, to act for which we are and we do not need others to tell us what to do because we know what is good for us and our mental health. Seeing us in the mirror and being proud of what we are is a real accomplishment.
How about forgetting about being online for just a couple of days? Turn off your computer or try only to use it in practical needs such as checking your e-mails. Instead of that, try to meet the people you used to chat and try to talk about the same things you talked about on the internet. There is a real satisfaction when you really see how the person sitting next to you react to what you say and gives you spontaneous answers. Laughing or enjoying things together should bring a smile to your face and the trust that you are able to have real relationships in real not virtual life. Enjoy the fresh air while you are meeting people and see how everything is more enjoyable then the chair or sofa where you used to stay when you were chatting.
Parents of children or tutors, try to give them other things to play. Try going out with them, going to the park, feeding ducks or pigeons, going to museums, trying new sports and developing new passions. Try to spend time getting to know what your children is really like and try to put him or her through situations that require attention and care are a real sense of real life. When you manage to do so, your child will linger for new things and completely forget about computer games and other things that alter their free and young minds.
All in all, the solution is having alternatives and taking advantage of them. Developing this kind of mentality will overcome many things that we face. Trying new things, different things make us unique but in the same time makes us unleash the chains of our addiction. It is up to everyone. We do not need others to tell us what we do, because we have the answer, we are the answer. But still, it requires a free mind and a beautiful soul to take advantage of the answer and to use it for our own good and for the community that gets richer and richer every day.
The training that we are put through every day of our life by a society that seems to forget about values, makes the power of knowledge and the heart of the people stay still, vanishing every trace of future or past. The nowadays human being lives in a continuous past. But living with all you are only in a dimension of time, and that dimension being altered, means slow but certain death of the identity. Let this be only a phase we are all facing and let’s open a new chapter called: learning to live. What do we want to see after all? Reality or virtual life? Truth or lies? Freedom or chains? Facts or Effects?