Why let your enemy control you by choosing to listen to his hate?

By David McElroy · July 7, 2015

The man ran over to the television and got close so he could hear what was being said. I was watching the scene unfold in a restaurant where a television is permanently set to show cable news.

“He just makes me so mad,” the man muttered with intensity. I wasn’t sure whether he was talking to me or to himself, but he was clearly referring to the media personality talking on the screen. He was upset, but the flickering image commanded his attention and his eyes were glued to the TV.

I watched him for a minute and finally asked the obvious question.

“If he makes you so angry, why do you listen so closely to him?” I asked. “Why not just ignore him?”

The man first looked puzzled, as though I had asked him a trick question. Then he finally responded with the tone one might use when explaining something obvious to a child.

“Well, he’s on television,” the man said. “He doesn’t like [my political group] and he’s always saying negative things about us. He’s on the news. I have to know what he says — because he makes me furious!”

I didn’t continue the conversation, partly because the man was fully absorbed with his hatred for the person he was watching on screen and partly because he clearly wasn’t interested in my line of thought. But I’ve been thinking about it now for several days, and it seems as though our media culture has created an entire country of people who hang on every word of the people they hate — just so they can reinforce their hatred.

I’ve known progressives who listen to Rush Limbaugh just to rail against the bombastic conservative radio host. I’ve known conservatives who know the faces of people such as Jesse Jackson and Nancy Pelosi better than they know their own children’s faces, because they spend so much time listening to the words of these people who they hate.

And all the people who do this — or even more moderate versions of it — have handed control of their own emotions over to their enemies.

There are a lot of things in this world to be outraged about, but if you can’t do anything about an outrage, you’re wasting your time to pay attention to it. I still let some things get to me — mostly incompetent journalism and random daily abuse of the English language — but I’m getting better about ignoring things I can’t change. Staying away from news media and focusing on things which you actually do control can relieve a lot of stress. It won’t fix the world, but neither will your rage and frustration.

The job of the news media is to attract an audience. Television in particular thrives on conflict. So news will play up conflicts and magnify the angry extremists who are willing to to to war with one another. It doesn’t accomplish anything other than get millions of people angry — but it drives up ratings and makes money for their bosses.

Most people who care abut politics already have a pretty good idea of which teams they’re rooting for and against. They already know who they hate. So why listen to those media personalities — politicians or talking heads — who you know are going to make you angry?

What are you trying to accomplish? You know you’re not changing anything by watching. Are you just entertaining yourself? Is this the sort of garbage you want to fill your mind with? Do you want to go through life full of anger?

When you listen to these people who make you angry, you are giving them control over part of your life. Why give them that power?

The time we have in this life is far too short. We have time for only a limited number of things. It’s all a tradeoff. The time you spend filling your mind with things that make you angry — and railing against people who don’t even know you exist — is time you can’t spend with people you love or with accomplishing your goals.

It’s your choice how you spend your time. If you enjoy being angry — and you enjoy it more than doing things that make you feel love or joy — that’s your business.

But don’t just fill your mind with this garbage by default. Consider that maybe you’re better off ignoring this media freak show. You might be happier if you take control of your life back from the people who are making you angry.

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If you have problems with high blood pressure, I’d like to encourage you to consider making serious changes to your diet. There might be some people who don’t have any choice but to start taking prescription medications for high blood pressure, but I’d like to tell you that I have completely eliminated my issue by eliminating all sugar and almost all carbohydrates. (A couple of months ago, my blood pressure hit 185/144, which was dangerously high — considered stage 3 hypertension.) By completely changing my eating habits, I’m down 22 pounds and my blood pressure is now in the “ideal” range — without taking any medication. In addition, I sleep better and I have more energy. Getting away from the sugar-laden mess that we generally refer to as “highly processed food” has been a life-changer for me. Now my challenge is to avoid slipping back into old habits — by eating in the dangerous ways that almost everyone in our society has come to see as normal.

When I first heard about this, I thought it must be satire. When I discovered it was real, I was appalled, but I still thought it must be a one-time thing from some nutty activist. But it turns out it’s the latest bit of pandering to a bunch of far-left activists who believe that a man can become a woman if he decides to claim he’s a woman. As everybody knows, men have prostate glands. Women do not. Period. End of story. Men can get prostate cancer. Women cannot. But political activists are so eager to pretend that a man claiming to be a “trans woman” is really a woman that they are insisting that “women” be included in public health messages about the issue. This is nothing but political virtue-signaling. If you’re a man, you know which parts you have. You know that you ought to be screened. Nobody is made any safer by dragging far-left gender ideology into simple medical reality.

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The late Steve Jobs was at the center of our culture’s transition from analog to digital. He co-founded Apple Computer. He led the team that revolutionized personal computing with the first Macintosh. As CEO of Apple, he led the development of the iPhone and later the iPad. You would think the children of such a man would be surrounded by technology. But Jobs and his wife Laureen didn’t let their children use iPads. Their home had few screens of any kind. Even though Jobs spent most of his time developing and selling Macs and iPhones and iPads, he was home with his wife and children for dinner when he was in town. The family ate together at a simple wooden table in their kitchen — and there were no digital devices or focus on popular culture. Instead, he’s said to have guided his family toward deep discussions of art, philosophy and education — with no iPads to be found. If the man who guided the development of such products chose a different path for his own children, does that suggest that his digital experience taught him that children need human connection, not screens? And does it suggest the possibility that we might be better off if we made the same choice for our families?

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