Guard Your Inputs
Most of us treat our senses like doors that are always open. We let anything in because it is convenient, entertaining, or feels normal. But what we feed our eyes and ears shapes how we think, what we feel, and who we become. That is not a small thing. It is everything.
Television is literally tell a vision. It does not just show, it tells. It programs. The shows, the ads, the news bites, the constant stream of curated emotion and opinion are all designed to nudge the mind in a direction. Programming is programming the mind to think as someone else desires. When you watch enough of the same message, you begin to accept the world in that shape without realizing you were reshaped.
The danger is not only what is explicitly false. The danger is what slowly becomes normal. The way people speak, the jokes that erode morality, the repeated stories that train us to fear or to idolize. The mind is a field. What you plant grows. If you plant noise and compromise, that is what you harvest.
Guarding your eyes and ears means more than avoiding the obvious. It means being selective about what gets your attention. It means testing the media you consume by asking who benefits from that message and whose voice is missing. It means recognizing the outlets that distort hearts and minds and choosing not to let them do the shaping work for you.
Guarding your tongue is part of this work. Words reinforce what the world pummels into you. If your speech is careless, you mirror what you let in. If you speak truth with restraint, you protect the soil of your heart. Speak less to respond and more to weigh. Let your words reflect what you truly believe, not what the latest trend demands.
Guarding the mind and heart is also about detaching to reattach to what matters. Sometimes you must unplug entirely. Put the device in another room. Turn off the feed. Step into quiet and allow your thoughts to settle. When you do, you remember how to think for yourself. You start hearing the smaller truths that were always drowned out by the loud voices.
This is not about fear of technology or living like a hermit. It is about discipline. It is about choosing what shapes you. It is about refusing to be molded into the image of a wicked world that profits from your distraction and confusion. When you protect your senses, you protect your inner being.
A practical start is simple. Notice one thing you watch that changes how you feel or think in a day. Pause it. Consider why it makes you respond the way you do. Replace one habit of mindless scrolling or passive viewing with something that builds wisdom. Read a short piece of truth. Listen to a real conversation. Sit in stillness for ten minutes each day and see what returns to you.
We were made to be formed from within, not to be overwritten from without. That means vigilance. That means discipline. That means choosing what to let in and what to shut out.
Protect what you see and hear, because the world will gladly program you if you let it, and the first step back to life is to unplug and think again.
