Things that Stimulate Your Mind

Things that Stimulate Your Mind

In the spring and summer, I don’t listen to the radio in my car; this is because I hate listening to ads. They steal my thoughts, so my car rides consist of plain silence. However, when football season starts, I turn the AM sports’ stations on. My mind then consumes all football related information. I like it. But I don’t love it, because I still have to deal with ads. I’ve noticed within the last month that I haven’t blogged as much. Before, I was blogging every weekday. It was tough at times, but it felt like an accomplishment. Maybe it’s because most of my time concocting blogging posts was developed while driving?

A lot of my friends and family watch TV. At social gatherings a conversation always comes up about various TV shows… Glee, How I Met Your Mother, Southpark, etc. Then when asked about my TV preferences, I always respond that I don’t watch TV unless it’s football. I don’t watch TV because it’s mindless. I rarely walk away from a TV show that has in some profound way encouraged me to challenge my thoughts or opinions. TV is a waste of time, plain and simple. Ahhh, but some might consider me a hypocrite. Because I do like movies. I like movies for two reasons:

  1. There is a beginning and an end. Usually, movies last anywhere from 90 to 120 minutes. TV shows try to hook you for the entire season. In the past, when I would watch a few episodes of a series or some show, I’d feel the need to go back and watch all of the previous ones and tune in to upcoming shows. When a movie is over, I can resume what I was doing without planning for the next week to watch it again.
  2. There are a lot of movies that make me ‘think.’ They challenge my beliefs and encourage me to not accept the status quo. V for Vendetta and Inception are great examples of this.

When you have free time, I would encourage you to ask yourself if the activity that you’re about to do (I’m not referring to physical activity) will stimulate your mind? Or is it a mindless waste of time?

Two favorite sites of mine that stimulate my mind and make me think: mnmlist and Hacker News.

What stimulates your mind?

You may enjoy:

  1. Distractions Are the Bane of Productivity
  2. Work Until Your Eyes Bleed
  3. The Trap is in Your Mind

Tweet me: @jprichardson

-JP

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-JP


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