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On and Off courtesy of wayne's eye view
Last year - January 2011 - I made a promise to myself.
My goal for the year was to eliminate politics from my life.
In the years leading up to this I had allowed myself to become consumed with the political entertainment machine. It was ridiculous. I was known to get all worked up. I was having the same arguments and it was draining energy from my life.
It was one year ago when I realized all of this energy was wasted.
There was no point to it.
It's been one year now and I have removed politics from my life. I don't follow political news. I don't participate in discussions of politics with co-workers, friends or family. The subject is completely removed from my life.
It's not worth it.
Since that time I've also removed other noise from my life. I don't pay attention to the stock market daily. I check in about every quarter to see how investments are doing. If I have questions about what has happened over the last few months I do some research for broad ranging topics only.
The idea of following business news each day is draining to me now. It's too much of a roller coaster ride and it was driving me crazy.
I only have so much room in my life for daily updates =)
I've also removed much of the noise from my information feeds. I have about 15 to 20 trusted people I follow on Twitter. These folks have earned my trust over a long period. I know they will only bring relevant information to the table. There is little noise in my Twitter feed now.
A recent elimination of noise came with Facebook. I now use my account for business requirements only. I had to eliminate the distraction of everything Facebook. The temptation was too strong for me. I had to remove it.
I have to say I'm more happy with the level of noise in my life today. There are fewer distractions. Looking back now I wonder why I wasn't able to make these decisions sooner.
I guess I've always been slow to learn some of the most important lessons in life. Perhaps it's immaturity. Perhaps it's the fact that I sometimes act or speak before thinking.
These days I just like to think I do a little better job with understanding what's important in life each day.
