It is difficult to exhibit independent thought whilst locked into the programmed world of 24 hour news and TV.

Like a demonic stage hypnotist in the corner of the room, the TV has taken over the lives of the majority of people in our society.

Through it, we are sold a lie: TV world tells us that if we buy enough of a particular product our lives will be perfect and our kids well adjusted.

In TV world’s adverts, cars only drive on empty, open roads or rugged countryside, never in fume filled, road rage beset urban jams.

In TV world’s sports programmes, each game is always “vitally important” to both sides, “crucial” – life and death.

In TV world’s news programmes, the news is always grim. Who decided that news always has to be bad?

‘What are you looking at?’

‘Here is the news: you are a slave to a box.’

That’s bad news for the soul.

Some of our most watched programmes are either soaps or murder mysteries – so, who decided that ‘entertainment’ is watching riff-raff argue or smug middle class know-it-alls solving grisly murders?

Why are we being fed a diet of sports, murder mysteries, soaps and game shows?

What effect is this having on our collective psyche? On our potential to grow spiritually and intellectually?

Television kills conversation, participation in real activities and independent thought. We regurgitate sound bites fed to us on a daily basis and believe that we are thinking for ourselves.

In TV world, we are programmed to accept what we are told. Reasoned, intelligent and informed conversation is replaced with wild-eyed shouting and swearing matches – or processed ‘opinions’ from trained performers.

Wake up and smell the flowers

All over the country, men lie on sofas watching sports, whilst their wives vacuum up around them or stagger past with armfuls of washing.

Do they even notice any more?

We are hypnotised, brains slowly atrophying under the sheer weight of inanity and profanity exuding from the increasingly large box in the corner.

But there is another way.

Turn it off.

Better still, throw it away.

We know that it is no good for us. Many of us even complain that there is ‘nothing decent on any more’.

But as long as it’s there, we will switch it on and switch our minds off.

It will be difficult at first to go cold turkey in no-TV world.

We will miss it’s comforting lure, the hypnotising repetition, the lack of need to engage the mind.

However, after a relatively short withdrawal period, we find that something amazing has happened.

We start to question things for ourselves. We notice birds in the garden, cattle in the fields, our partners struggling with the washing.

And once our eyes have been opened, we cannot go back. Soon after the eyes open, the mind eventually does the same.

We realise that we have been hypnotised for years, every night, into not questioning – just accepting things as they are.

Ditching the TV is the first step on the road to awakening to a new life, a higher purpose.

In no-TV world, there are endless possibilities.