Learn to Consume Without Letting Everything Consume You
If you are not intentional about what shapes your thinking, somebody else will gladly do the thinking for you.
During our Beyond-the-Church conversation, we eventually moved from creation and evolution into another interesting question: is there an agenda behind everything we watch and listen to?
My answer is yes—almost everything has some type of agenda. But that does not automatically mean the agenda is bad.
A songwriter is trying to tell you something. A television show wants you to feel something. A commercial wants you to buy something. A politician wants your vote. A social media post wants your attention. Even Beyond-the-Church has an agenda—we want people to take the church that is inside them and actually live it outside the walls.
The issue is not that something has an agenda.
The issue is whether you are paying attention to what it is doing to you.
Stop Assuming Every Agenda Is Evil
Sometimes we go too far trying to find a hidden message in everything. We start believing every song has some secret motive, every television show is trying to corrupt us, or every person who creates something is intentionally trying to push us in the wrong direction.
I do not think we need to live that way.
Yes, there are unhealthy influences. Yes, there are messages you should reject. But there are also people genuinely trying to entertain, teach, tell a story, sell a product, or share an idea. Everything does not have to become some massive conspiracy.
At the same time, you cannot afford to be naive.
You need discernment.
Learn From What You Consume
This is what I try to do with the things I watch: I look at them through an eye of learning.
What can this teach me?
That does not mean I cannot enjoy something. Pamela and I can watch something completely over the top like Final Destination and simply be entertained. But even while enjoying something, I still want to be aware of what I am allowing into my thinking.
The same is true with people.
You become influenced by what you repeatedly expose yourself to. That is why we have always told our daughter that you become like the people you spend your time around. What surrounds you eventually starts shaping you.
That means you have to learn how to enjoy life without allowing everything you encounter to dull your thinking.
Everybody Is Trying to Tell You Something
Even a Burger King commercial has an agenda.
I remember seeing one of their commercials about a new Whopper and thinking, there was nothing wrong with the old Whopper. But guess what? The commercial was doing its job. It was talking to me. Now I wanted to go try the thing.
That is an agenda.
It does not necessarily make the commercial evil. It just means somebody created it with a desired result in mind.
The same is true for almost everything you encounter. Someone wants you to think something, feel something, buy something, believe something, or do something.
Next-level people understand that.
They do not simply absorb everything placed in front of them. They think about it.
Manage Your Mind
The bigger lesson for me is that you have to continually manage your own mind.
You cannot control everything you see. You cannot control every message people put in front of you. You cannot control every agenda around you.
But you can decide what gets to stay.
You can decide what deserves your attention. You can decide what you learn from. You can decide what you reject. You can decide what you allow to become part of the way you think.
That is personal growth.
It is not about being afraid of the world around you. It is about becoming strong enough mentally, spiritually, and personally that everything around you does not automatically become everything inside you.
Take the Lesson, Leave the Rest
That is really the strategy.
Take the lesson.
Leave the rest.
Learn from people even when you do not agree with everything about them. Learn from television. Learn from music. Learn from advertising. Learn from people who think differently. Learn from success. Learn from failure.
But always keep your mind engaged.
Ask yourself: What is this teaching me? What is this trying to produce in me? Is that something I actually want?
You do not have to be suspicious of everything.
You just have to be intentional about everything.
Because the strongest mind is not the one that avoids every influence—it is the one that knows exactly which influences deserve permission to stay.
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