527. Denial

When you say to yourself "I am not in this situation, I don't care." when in fact you are in that very situation, then you are in a state of denial. Denial equals Delusion. This is a very unhealthy mental state and should be avoided at all costs. When you deny what you know in your heart to be true, you are practicing Active Ignorance. In short you are lying to yourself. It leads only to misery and pain.

Denial is a major gateway to mental illness and ultimately, if taken to its logical conclusion, leads one to madness and destruction.

When a situation that you do not like develops, rather than going into denial, stand back and review and evaluate it thoroughly. See what, if anything, is to be done about it. Work out what the most appropriate response is and take action on it. Then let the bally thing go and move on from it.

You do not always have to respond immediately. Oftentimes, you have enough time to meditate and consider all your options before rushing in.

498. Too Much Information

A wealth of information creates poverty of attention. Balance your information receiving time (lectures, reading etc.) with an equal amount of time dedicated to Meditation and Creative Thinking. Meditation will restore attention. Learn to develop selective active ignorance by deliberately ignoring information that is :

(a) Irrelevant
(b) Unimportant
(c) Un-actionable

The same goes for interruptions.

"There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant." -Ralph Waldo Emerson.