Youtube and Big Couches - Know How Your Brains Got Replaced By Potatoes

What is the best shortcut for ..... ? I used to ask this question most of the time. At work, studies, driving, food preparation, reading even sleeping! I discovered I wasn't the only one doing this, most people I got engaged with had the same "short cut mentality". I've noticed this in any online conversations like OMG, LOVE YA, BRB , OIC you can always check the top 50 text terms. Someone might go on telling me  this saves time in texting. Although, I can go forever on how this can screw up your English language to a poor vocabulary state.

However, That is not the only case, we for some reason became lazy creatures in this modern YouTube life. The last decade Tv's made us more passive less active. Then Youtube improved the existence of passive creatures by giving them more easier options to make everything simple and visual. Instead of reading the newspaper we watch it (less effort). Along time ago, when there was no television, people discovered the joy of reading and grew up with books, reading anything that they could lay their hands on. But in this age of television and the Internet, made no chance for  books.

In the past, they used to built their imagination based on words they comprehend. Recently, you are told why use your imagination when we can do it for you. Why think and analyze when everything is so easy & visual. Just sit down and Watch! The couch trend increased because we were looking for something comfy to rest our buttocks on and enjoy our passiveness of continuous watching. We turned to Zombies driven by higher force not knowing what it is but for some reason we comply with acceptance. Our brains have turned into Potatoes because of this easy shortcut approach to learning. 

The only reason fast food restaurants opened long time ago is because of some lazy ass ancestors preferred a convenient fast meal to keep them going during the day. They were too lazy to cook or buy from conventional restaurants as places like these takes on average 30 - 45 minutes to cook a healthy meal. Fast food is now great in taste, takes an average of 5 minutes waiting and makes you full. However each and every single point has a massive draw back. I got shocked when I knew there were industries that were built to provide flavors to burgers, fries, bread...etc. They only work for fast food restaurants to cover the dirt of the taste by delicious chemical ingredients with highly pleasant Aroma. This might look good on the short run as you don't waste your valuable time in food preparation but it never was any good on long term. However there is no place for me here to talk about fast food industry maybe in another article but I truly recommend to read fast food nation.

A week ago I witnessed a female fainted on the sidewalk so I rushed myself to find huge crowd around her WATCHING. They were doing nothing else except observing her. Thank god I accompanied a physician who came on the right timing and rescued her. After this situation passed still people were gathered doing nothing, I connected the dots as it wasn't the first time something like this happened. Every accident on the street people just gather around and watch. It's the passiveness that kills your proactive instinct. As you can see they are accustomed to watch and see how the sequence of events goes without doing any intervention. Too much Tv or any visual entertainment raises this instinct into people. It turns them into a zombie state except that real zombies are scary but them they became as useless as a lump.

We are glued to look always for shortcuts. We might FAIL after using a certain shortcut but for some reason we keep doing it again. Why?

It's the fear of moving on the long path. The normal path is long with forks, holes, challenges and constant non stop efforts. Simply, we either procrastinate or we take a detour to avoid the real path. This gives the illusion of feeling smarter than others. But after sometime we realize we were jumping from shortcut to another leading us no where close to what we really want.

The Journey itself is the point, the challenges itself is the point. I remember going to a concert with a friend he loved the guitarist's performance. After we got out, he told me I think guitar is going to be my thing. Next day, He bought a guitar, so filled with enthusiasm. To be honest he really sucked when he started playing for me as I was the only supporter. He was tutored for 3 months by a private tutor but he didn't reach a state where he can play and someone enjoy and smile unless that someone was deaf. He gave up and went to another instrument and their goes his shortcut struggle. The band that played in concert for almost an hour, rehearsed for this moment at least thousands of hours. I know a professional piano player he told me it took him 2.5 years around 5,000 of hours to play it fluently remembering notes, rhythms and the right tones. Its a long path if you asked me but it's worth it if that was your goal.

2 years ago, I met a friend at a marketing conference in Cairo. She seemed very smart. Our conversation was about the importance of internet marketing in this modern world. She was very interested in my talk. She asked me to give her a condensed course on all the things I know about internet marketing, I welcomed the idea. The conference lasted for 4 days. Each day we would finish the conference and ask for permission from the hall manager to give us an extra hour.

I provided her with my recent case studies, my methods and some of my approaches. The conference and ended everyone got back to their homes. she was from Jordan so I never heard from her till recently. I was surprised to find that she built a new online based company earning 10 times as much as I do. I was astonished, I asked her tell me what did you do?

She was fascinated about this internet marketing whole idea thing, once she got back to Jordan, she started to work  8 - 10 hours everyday and after 2 years there she was so successful 10 times better than me as with her more focused more determined approach. I can only say hard-work truly makes a vast difference in people's lives. She became a different person, different attitude someone else than I knew 2 years ago. I kept thinking of how can only 2 years completely reform her life, how fascinating!!

This philosophy works with relations between humans to humans. To be honest I was living in a wrong approach in my life focusing around efficiency. I used to almost never hangout with a friend for the sake of just hanging out unless something that provides value, either new knowledge, information or something meaningful that leads to good deeds. Everything was measurable according to how my brains function. I politely rejected any invitations to most hangouts in cafes, restaurants that are meant just for the sake to HANGOUT and nothing else.

This method led my close friends on the edge of me losing them. As you can see most people like to hangout to share their social emotions with the ones they love. I never was emotional about sharing my feelings. I tried to change it but it seems it didn't work for me. However, I realized everyone had an emotional bank account that must be filled to sustain a healthy relationship. And for that I was very poor at that aspect. I looked for shortcuts with friends. To be efficient with them. I wasn't building a healthy effective long-term relationship with my close friends.

Back then, my old friends knew that I was the most boring one to chat with. Not because I liked to bore people but I thought what a waste of my valuable time. Especially if this chat was based on "hows everything going" "hows your family" ... Etc. I can't remember me calling someone just for the sake of how  he or she is doing unless if it involves a certain type of activity. But not for the sake "hey let me share with you my emotional status for today".

I gotta say I recently changed 180 degrees, although I still carry some residuals from my past behavior that can't be altered. I mean I can't imagine myself having a romantic phone call that lasts for an hour or two like most of my friends do in their relationships. No way I would endorse this behavior I would literally get a psychological problem if I was forced to do so. And if that someone insisted on something like this I just keep a far distance in my relation with that someone . For that reason I fail connecting with the other gender from the romantic side. I believe we live life once. I am not planning to live it if its full of silly superficial socially based romantic dogma crap. However, that can not contradict with an inner loving soul filled with passion and affection to things that matter.

You see whenever our lives gets messed up we tend to turn to god. It seems after we get so desperate from materialistic means we go look for help up there to gain inner peace and blessings. But we only do it in the hard times and only in the HARD TIMES. Even in our relation with god we look for shortcuts. Their is also a bank account with god that you need to fill with daily honest focused prayers, that tells him; I remember you in my most blessed & difficult times. It doesn't matter what my state is I'm still connected. This involves dedication, long term efforts to reach to that creator up there. It'll never happen by a one time night prayer for the sake of something materialistic to happen. It's like you not studying all semester no slightest clue on any subject. Then you decide to study in the last hour to pass the exam. Hoping to pass the test. Does it work? It Never does!

All I see is that we are contaminated with this shortcut approach to everything. We hold to the words;

• FAST
• INSTANT
• EASY
• EFFICIENT

We forget all about; 

• SLOW
• LONG
• HARD
• EFFECTIVE

We do have to balance between being a social lovable person who maintains and initiates relationships and someone efficient who values time and money to put it in the right place. Doing monk acts with god but never give your back on materialistic measurable means.

 It's all about quality of life, not about working so hard in one area and getting upside down in another.

We live in system that takes time. God created Earth in 7 days. Earth orbits the sun 365 solar days. A pregnant female human needs 9 month to deliver a baby. A seed needs weeks to start having a definite stem form. Learning a new language fluently takes nearly  2 years. Becoming a millionaire involves long years of thinking and work.

Enough flirting with procrastination and easy detours. It's time to go for the natural path that is irrelevant to the word LAZY and relevant to the word PATIENCE. That if you are planning for a life full of accomplishments.  Better live a short life that is full of achievements than a long life filled of shortcuts that leads to misery and tracks of failures. I am very confident not many these days have patience to read full articles. Social media made it easy for them to accommodate their eyes to pictures or small statuses, one to two paragraphs long. So I'm very confident that I writing to the right audience.Thanks for reading. Don't forget to share these thoughts with your friends during hangouts.