Media Corruption

Apr 10, 2008

I believe that I've been corrupted by television to believe that I'm supposed to be happy. Possibly not "happy", but more than that. I believe that someone is supposed to love me; I should be able to handle all life's down falls and recover within one week; I should have a group of close friends that want to spend all their time with me and sit around asking about how I feel; I should go to work everyday, but it should involve very little working and mostly socializing, gossip and joking around. This is having a very negative effect on my life. I have no romantic partner and every relationship that I've ever attempted has ended catastrophically. I find myself crying about things that happened 6 months ago and not being able to "let go". I have one day a week (or sometimes in two weeks!) when I can find a babysitter to go out on the weekend and not a single friend has called me back. My co-workers could care less about what is going on in my personal life and generally expect me to work every second that I spend in the building. This is actually making me quite depressed right now (no, not "clinically depressed", just feeling down). The reason is that I have much more contact with people on TV and movies. When was the last time that you sat down and really connected with someone for two hours? Now, how many days a week do you sit in front of the TV watching happy people for two hours? I'm not saying that I'm a couch potato. Usually I'm working out or eating or painting. But inevitably the television is blaring the sounds of smiling happy people that have no worries in the world. How do we overcome this? How do we find people that are interested in having real relationships? Should we be exposing ourselves to more pain and struggles to learn to bear our own personal pitfalls? I want to walk up to someone and shout "I'm not happy and that's OK!" But is it anymore?