Time for the News

One year ago I could have answered most any question you had for me on current events. I faithfully listened to NPR both to and from work. I had RSS feeds from CNN, BBC, NFL, and various other alphabet soup organizations that ensured I knew the minute something happened, anything. Then we had another child. I ran out of time to do much of anything. When I started seriously looking at what I needed to cut back on to free up enough time to just get the absolutely necessary tasks completed, I noticed that I was spending a lot of my time keeping up with the world. Sure I could readily converse on nearly any topic in the news, but I was missing workouts, rushing the trash to the curb just ahead of the trash truck, not making any progress in the books that I needed to be reading, and getting "the look" from my wife far too often when sitting at the computer. I decided that knowing the status of the current government scandal was no longer worth the time that it took to acquire the details. It was time to cut back. When I began to look at what I really needed to know and the information that I was actually taking in it quickly became clear that I had no real need or interest in roughly 80% of what I was taking in from my various news streams. After sitting down with a blank sheet and a pencil and a little focused thinking I was able to identify the things that I am truly interested in knowing on a regular basis. A few more minutes research and I was able to identify blogs or twitter feeds that had good updated information for those areas. Now all of the news that I really want comes to me with a minimal amount of gossip, scandal, opinion, blatant lies, or general sensationalism. So far I don't miss it. It actually makes me feel go dd to say things like "I have never heard of Lady Gaga" or "There is another political sex scandal? Huh, guess I missed it" I'll keep you updated on my low information plan. Special thanks on this one to Tim and the
4HWW.

Christmas is the season for getting...

In past posts I have mentioned some of the ways that we super size our lives for convenience. This Christmas has really brought home to me the mindset of getting more stuff as an agenda. Yesterday a cashier at Walmart was talking to my four year old son. Her first question was "Did you have a good Christmas?" Her second question was "Did you get a lot of good stuff?" Perhaps this is a clever marketing technique that the multinational mega-retailer is pushing, but other interactions over the last few days have convinced me that she was just voicing the general thinking about the holiday. No matter how many times we say that Christmas is about giving, most people seem more concerned about getting. In a strange twist, many people I have spoken with seem happy for others that have gotten large numbers of expensive gifts. Not only do we want to get lost of stuff for ourselves, but we want everyone else to get lots of stuff too! This would be fine if everyone had plenty of money, stable jobs, and not debt. Unfortunately very few families find themselves in that situation. I am not advocating a miserly lifestyle absent of fun and things that make you happy, but the idea that more stuff is better needs to be laid to rest.