The News
Imagine that you were thirsty and being thirsty you sought out a source of some water. Now imagine that you put your mouth in front of a fire hydrant and turned it on. What would happen? You would probably be choking from the incredible amount of water and able to drink no more than a drop or two. To top it off you would still be thirsty.
Sound familiar? Probably not. It would be difficult to believe that anyone would try to slake their thirst like this. Yet, you and I do something similar every single day.
Each day we awaken with a thirst for the news. We seriously want to know what is happening, how it will affect us and how it will affect our investments, our plans, our loved ones. It’s not new. Every morning thousands of years ago the neanderthals would come out of their caves and using the only source they had, their senses, they would try to gather all the information they could in order to survive. Then came troubadours, town criers, newspapers, radio,TV and each source expanded our access to the news.
Now access has undergone a great change. Now we can receive news from an infinite number of sources. Now we can open our eyes and ears to the fire hydrant of news that is constantly gushing forward. There is fake news, liberal news, conservative news, financial news, weather news, international news, propaganda news, satire news, parody news, government news, surfing news, rock climbing news, skiing news and hundreds more.
What can we do? Look at any newspaper or magazine. What stands out? The headlines! The headlines serve two purposes. They inform us and they tease us into buying them and finding out more. They are fully aware of our addiction to more.
Like most things in life we want more but we don’t really need more. We switch to little houses and few possessions but our addiction to more news seems to always be raging. It’s time to drink from the garden hose of news (I know, you were told not to this but this is a metaphor!) and not the hydrant. How do we do this?
Your greatest aide is a cheap oven timer. Sip the news. Be very choosy when you decide to go past the headlines to more. Set the oven timer when you decide you want some news. Set the timer for time on social media. Set the timer for random searches. Set the timer for videos. Set the timer and make no excuses to ignore it when it rings. This will give you an incredible strengthening of your self discipline and it will leave you much, much more time to live and love.
“I can gather all the news I need on the weather report” -Paul Simon
Sundrops On life – Better thoughts. Better days.
Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
Facebook – Sundrops On Life
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