Purpose in the Age of Distraction

Hello fellow readers welcome to the blog! I've been away but I expect to be writing more often this year. I’ve been thinking lately about how much of our inner world we hand over without even noticing. Technology. Entertainment. The environment we live in. Have you ever paused long enough to notice what’s truly shaping your inner world—your thoughts, emotions, and direction? Technology, entertainment, and the environment whisper constantly into your mind, and often, without realizing it, they’re the ones setting the course.They slip in quietly, shaping what we think about, how we think about it, and how it makes us feel. Our thought life matters. It’s not just mental noise—it steers the course of our days, and over time, the course of our life. The Bible says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” That’s not a poetic metaphor. It’s reality. Open Instagram for a moment and watch what happens. A single reel can plant doubt about your relationship. A clip of an "advice" from a stranger can make you question your spouse. A few seconds of video can leave you angry, sad, restless, or longing for something you didn’t even know existed before you saw it. We start to idealize relationships we’ve never had, lifestyles we’ve never lived, versions of ourselves we’ve never even wanted before that moment. Or maybe we see something that stirs fear, frustration, outrage—and we carry it for hours. Most of the time, we don’t even know if what we saw was true. And yet, it shapes us. That’s the part I find unsettling—how a small device in our pocket can touch the deepest part of us, and in doing so, quietly change the direction of our lives.

I’ve also noticed how uncomfortable we can be with silence. Just sitting on our own, without a screen, without music, without something filling the space. No voices in our ears. No images in front of our eyes. Just stillness. And when it comes, we rush to fill it. A podcast. A movie. Music. Something—anything—that keeps us from being alone with our own thoughts. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying these things now and then. A good film, a song that stirs something in you, a moment of art that makes the world feel richer. Those are gifts. But they’re meant to be moments, not the whole of our lives. If your days are strung together from one distraction to the next, if you’re living only for the weekend—then the rest of your life starts to feel like a waiting room. You endure the week just to get to the part you think is worth living. The truth is, your thought life shapes everything. How you see yourself. The decisions you make. The people you keep close. The direction you take. It’s the quiet current beneath the surface, and it’s always moving you somewhere. Imagine for a moment if you didn’t have Instagram. You’d be a different person. If YouTube disappeared, maybe you’d be working somewhere else. Living differently. That’s not just theory—it’s reality. The things we consume shape us more than we realize. So I wonder—would you be better without them? Worse? Would you be in a better place or a worse one? Would your family, the people you love, be better off? Those are questions worth asking. And worth sitting with in the silence we so often avoid.

Do you have a worldview? Do you have a position on what truth is? What is most important in your life? The type of person you want to be? The steps you need to take to be that person? And are you actively engaging in them? An athlete that is preparing to compete knows exactly what helps him achieve that goal and what does not help him achieve that goal. And that gives them sort of a map. That gives them a direction in life. And the more consistent he is in it, the more likely that he will be successful in his goal. If I want to be an archaeologist, I know what I need to do and what I need to read to prepare. I know what I need to know. And most of my time will be spent there, training hard to become one. I won't be going to concerts, for example, as much. If at all. Why? Because I have a focus. There's something that I want to do. There's something that I need to prepare to do. And my effort and my focus is going in that direction. If you don't have a purpose, if you don't have a goal, you become one of these people who just attach to anything that’s shiny and new. Just following the crowd. There's someone else, or something else, that gives them direction. There's someone else that gives them wind. And as soon as their wind changes, or the last person that makes an impression in them, that's the direction that they go. And we come into a situation, especially in Europe, that because there's so many people who go through life this way, it's so easy to divide us. It's so easy to separate us. Like, when was the last time you willfully engaged in a conversation with someone that you know you disagree with? And actually allow them to speak and hear that point? And they actually allow you to speak and hear your point? I mean, this is something that I feel right now is actively disencouraged. It feels like we’re being trained not to. No wonder that we live in the unstable time that we're living in. How well do you know yourself? How well do you know the people that you love? How well do you know the people that you call friends? What is the depth of your relationships? How much time you spend together? What is the depth and the strength of your bond with your family?

Dont get me wrong technology is awesome, it's useful. But I also think like any powerful tool, it can be used for good, it can be used for evil. Like any tool, it depends on the hands that use it.
And if you are not careful, it will use you instead! We must be armed with purpose to be able to use it instead of being used by it. That is very, very important. That is something that I even see in myself, how I sometimes allow a YouTube video to change my mood. Or I allow a podcast, or even music, to change my mood about something, or about someone. And that's sort of scary. In order for you to be self-disciplined, you must know yourself. You must be in control of your facets, you must be able to look at yourself from outside, be able to analyze the strengths and weaknesses, and shape yourself and give form in a way - like a craftsman. And my question is this. What is your goal? What is your purpose? What do you want to be? Who do you want to become? And are you actively engaging in the things that will allow you to accomplish that goal? Or are you just going through life, being entertained, waiting for the next party, waiting for the next trip abroad? Waiting for the next hookup, waiting for the next drink, waiting for the next joint, to bring you pleasure or distraction or entertainment?

I don’t say this to make you sink into despair, I hope this post does not depress you or overwhelm you. I say it so that you’ll pause and think deeply—about your life, your thoughts, and how they’re shaping you. About how easily they can mold you into someone you don't intend to be. I hope that if you are reading my blog, and if you are struggling perhaps with where you are in life, and who you are, or anything else, that it will spark a little light in your darkness. If you’re here, if you’re reading this, I hope you’re not someone who’s content to sit still and let life pass by. That you'll realise you're responsible for the type of man or woman you become. Because at the end of the day—purpose, connection, truth—are what steady us in uncertain times. And if we don’t tend to them, we’re left drifting. Easily divided. Easily distracted. Easily lost. God bless and see you on the next post!