Today I was at the local dairy (convenient store) and just happened to look at this magazine stand.

After briefly skimming past some of the titles, I couldn’t help but realise the amount of garbage and rubbish that’s printed in these publications for the price of money that’s paid for this trash to read about distorted, misguided information about other people’s lives, gossip and that latest trending thing…

Then this got me thinking about what image is imprinted in peoples minds about who they’re reading about – particularly for the person that’s been written about in the headlines. And realising the contribution peoples perceptions add to distorted reality and poor mental health of many in our society.

I’m weary that although its “just a magazine”, next time you pick one up that you think about what your buying, why your buying it and the intention portrayed in the featured stories about someone’s life and how your buying into and contributing to that cycle.

In recent times many of us have suffered from and fall into wanting to know what’s going on whether it’s a magazine or the little powerful thing that sits in your hand connected to the world through websites, social media, video calling and text messaging – a cellular phone.

But how many of us actually sit back before we pick it up to read the headlines and peek through the window of peoples lives (aka Facebook, Twitter and instagram) and make a subconscious judgement about what we see? How many of us actually don’t realise that what we see and view we make subtle comments about?

The poorest part of this is that today’s society, particularly here in New Zealand, we have one of the largest Suicide rates in the OECD see: NZ Suicide Rates.

What got me thinking about why I wrote this blog is because the images about Angelina Jolie being shipped off to Rehab or that three of New Zealand’s male celebrity’s didn’t tell us that they have had problems with family life and marriage got me almost livid thinking ‘Why do I want to know that?’, ‘who does want to know this and why?’ And if we buy into knowing this crap, what are we doing by reading this junk?

For the most part the fact that their stories are slammed on these publications and magazines means that their privacy is immediately compromised and their shot of being a normal citizen of the world is now met with such judgement from a reader that really doesn’t understand them or their circumstances.

So if we have these views and perspectives of these people who are normal everyday human beings with jobs and lives, and we make a judgement about them because it’s what we paid to read in a publication of possibly unfounded junk and rubbish of their true authentic story, we have to ask ourselves about our judgement of them and their story and if they were in front of us what would you say? What would you do? Would you praise them for the story or would you sit back in silence and judge them with those subtle comments from afar?

If we take these thoughts and apply them to the Suicide rate of New Zealand I can almost guarantee that much of those who have taken their lives have had some trauma that has resulted to a very intention of misjudgement and unfounded story telling that whether created by the story teller or not has contributed to the lack of compassion to not read about a person but reach out and have real conversations. We fail at this now and it’s extremely sad.

A cousin of mine said after a significant loss in his family that someone who was trying to show compassion asked him how he was But didn’t really want to know? His response was blunt and truthful saying that he wasn’t great and that he lost a dear loved one. This person wasn’t ready for that response and immediately tried hard to get out of the conversation whilst dismissing my cousin saying ‘I was only asking…!’ – so don’t ask if your not prepared for your answer may have the complete opposite reaction causing more harm than ever.

I believe we’re not having those real conversations that help people realise they exist. That they matter. That you see them and they’re validated in your eyes.

The truth of the matter is this, regardless of where those stories come from, we owe it to ourselves as citizens of the universe to be kind, show appreciation more, laugh and enjoy life and be human in asking people if they’re okay and that they mean something to you.

Be prepared for the uncomfortable conversation. It’s okay not to be okay. It’s okay not to have the answers. But it’s not okay to show someone that your superficially listening and caring with conditional compassion.

The contribution to how you look at the world and the people in it is a huge consideration for how they feel and exist. By showing that level of compassion, respect and unconditional love is important to whether that person decides that today they will survive! And it’s all down to you!