We are in a big battle. There is war all around us. The enemies of our lives and lofty dreams and aspiration are shooting at us.They want to destroy us and rob us of our future. It is very subtle but equally powerful. The enemies are attacking and their biggest weapon is the WEAPONS OF MASS DISTRACTIONS!

These weapons are seemingly harmless, extremely useful and mostly fun, BUT as far as our future is concerned, they can be deadly if not properly used.

Deadly, because they can stop us from achieving our goals and becoming the person we would like to be. This is especially true of teenagers and school children who have little control over their actions. Before I make my list, I want to emphasize that these weapons are not negative in themselves, in fact some are very good when you are in control, but they have the ability to hold you down and keep you bound. When this happens, they become weapons of mass distraction and they can distract you from your dreams and negatively affect your future and your destiny!

For a boy or girl on a mission of making it in life, you must make every minute count. Once you have set your mind on success, you will find many weapons of mass distraction that will attempt to rob you of focusing solely on taking care of what matters to you at that time. I can think of about 10 Major weapons, but I will only share with you my insight into 2 or 3 of the weapons because of space and time!

First weapon is SOCIAL MEDIA on your smart phone! Using social media such as Twitter or Facebook is extremely effective in expanding your circle of influence and depending on the business you do, it can be a valuable tool in helping one another and sharing useful information, doing homework and helping one another to solve academic problems. The only problem is, it can be a big time waster, if not used properly. I see some funny status messages and I laugh. “James is having a shower and enjoying vanilla ice-cream!”. While that can be a good and funny information for a friend, but when I have work to do, it wouldn’t matter to me if he had a bath or a shower or if it was chocolate or vanilla ice-cream!

It is amazing the number of people who post their problems without doing anything about them! If you have a problem seek for a solution, posting it on Facebook doesn’t really help. It rather gives a topic for the next round of gossip in town.

Focus your time and energy on what is important to you. The homework, the essay, the book that you must complete. The clock is ticking, there is zero time to read and answer irrelevant messages. Simply open, read and answer any communication that is relevant to your work, studies or that helps in your pursuit of excellence. Leave the rest for later. They are best enjoyed, and you can relax with these when you have finished your study or the task for the day.

With Twitter, it is the same. Some of the tweets have valuable information, so I take what is useful and leave the rest. Reading the millions of irrelevant tweets that fill your screen? DISTRACTION, especially when you have work to complete.

ANOTHER WEAPON: TEXT MESSAGES: A friend of mine mentioned how addicted her daughter is to text messages. She said “Students just don’t get it! They think it is their right to come into lessons with mobile phones, so they do not miss the ‘life-saving’ message that may come in.” I think this is true, but you can be the exception to the rule. You cannot be a slave to a piece of equipment. Use it as much as you require, BUT BE IN CONTROL! Even for some adults they can be addictive. How many lives have been lost as a result of our addiction to this wonderful gadget, often used at the wrong time? I am talking about car accidents as a result of someone driving and texting! Texting affects our concentration while driving, studying or doing other important stuff. It can also affect so many areas of our lives by reducing our ability to focus and thereby robbing us of a good life! DISTRACTION

NEXT WEAPON: TELEVISION: TV can easily become the biggest time thief of all and yet, people don’t realize it. It is amazing how people take the time to buy the best security for their home so their precious belongings don’t get stolen, but when it comes to protecting their mind and their time, two of their biggest assets, the doors are wide open for easy pickings. I read of a story of a man who once asked his friend how much his state of the art TV costs. He replied, “It costs $1000”. “No, No! That is how much it costs you to buy! You have to add that to how much it would cost you to watch it. For you watching TV up to 5 hours a day, It could cost you close to $40,000” What a price to pay!

The X Factor, Grey’s Anatomy, Scrubs, Britain’s got Talent, etc. Great TV shows. I love watching these shows, although I usually make sure I do all that needs to be done before I can allow myself the luxury of watching them. In a way, they help, because they make me work hard and finish any domestic and school work, knowing fully well that we are going to relax and enjoy these shows almost as a reward.

You too need to get your priorities right. If you find yourself watching hours of television every day, it might be good to think about whether or not it’s a subtle indication to yourself that your life is not what you want it to be, that it’s not interesting enough, so you feel the need to immerse yourself in the lives of others.

I am not suggesting that you live your life as I do, I am only saying there are a lot of distracting factors out there, almost bordering on addictions. This is the worst part of watching too much television. Brian Kim once said that TV can be just as addictive as any illegal substance on the market today. It’s easily accessible, pleasurable, and makes you forget your troubles for the day!
“You watch one show and when it ends, the TV says ‘Coming up next . . . stay tuned for blah blah blah’, so you become curious, you watch it and you like it and BOOM, you add another programme to your weekly TV schedule. Those hours add up and once you get vested in the shows, they’ve got you for life!” Hahaha!

Imagine how many proposals you can write in those hours, and how many homework you could finish! I cannot help asking myself how much money they pay people, especially when I see the dedication to some of these programmes on TV, like football.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy watching a good game of football and I do play football when I have the opportunity or as part of my fitness regime. But, to ignore my planning time or my study time at the expense of watching these games will make me less productive than I can be. DISTRACTIONS! So What should you do? If you have a game of football to watch, make it part of your plan for the day. Set out what you need to achieve that day and what you need to do in order to relax.

I know people would think this is harsh, but……“What Katie Price did next,”? Oh my God! What have we got ourselves into? I am honestly not interested in what Katie did next, neither do I want to be keeping up with the Kardashians. And I do not judge you if you want to keep up with the Kardashians.

I am busy trying to build a future for myself and those important to me. A half-hour of this DISTRACTION will turn into an hour or two or three and there goes your valuable study or preparation time. If you must watch a programme, why don’t you record it with the new Sky technology and watch it later when you are done with your work?
These are very basic distractions. I’m sure you can think of and have experienced more. Your objective in building your life, and working hard is to delay pleasure and suffer pain now so you can enjoy your life tomorrow. Like I said earlier, don’t be caught up in what the world is selling to us. That is the “BUY NOW and PAY LATER” philosophy. They are basically saying enjoy now and pay with your life later, rather than saying sacrifice now so you can have a good future, where you can talk for 2 hours on the phone if you like and it doesn’t affect you in any way!

Be wise, get yourself dressed in armours of wisdom and avoid the WEAPONS OF MASS DISTRACTION!

See you at the Top!
Tola Dee Adeliyi