In This Edition:
1. Ah, October!
2. Information Overload: Tiny Distractions Add Up
3. Life is Finite, Information is Infinite
4. Paring Down
5. Now It's Official: What Makes for True Happiness
Ah, October!
Does anyone not like this month? The leaves
turning, college sports in full bloom, the World Series looming, and congressional elections to boot! This month, I'm spending as
much time as I can outside. How about you?
Information Overload: Tiny Distractions Add Up
With each passing day, impediments to our stepping outside mount,
largely in the form of more information coming our way. Early man examined
his food to ensure it 1) was dead and 2) had no insects. 21st century man
barely looks at his food; he's fixated on the package. Corporate giants
figured out that consumers could become thoroughly hooked on "package
literature."
Recognizing our craving for information, advertisers offer
alluring product packaging. The average cereal box contains about 2,000
words, equal to eight pages of a book. Generic products, at the same basic
quality as mid-level brands, were once sold by vendors who knew that people
might not buy "wordless" cardboard and risk incurring "package deprivation."
Package deprivation? It's no surprise today that most of our
population -- not just kids -- wears clothes or accessories with slogans and
messages on them. Attraction to labeling and package copy robs you of
breathing space. Minute bits of extraneous data have a cumulative impact.
Other symptoms of information overload abound. Do you attempt to
think, converse, study, or even make love with distractions? Do you try to concentrate with office noise? Do you
attempt to converse while on the Web or watching TV? Do you "need" to wind
down before bed in front of a screen?
You deserve a break today. Eat healthy food, with people in
message-free clothing, and no reading material or screens in sight.
Life is Finite, Information is Infinite
Recognize, with the clarity of death, that life is finite; you cannot
wistfully ingest the daily deluge of information/communication and expect to
achieve balance.
Don't passively yield to the din and settle for living your life in
what's left over after each day's onslaught. Hereafter, make sensible
choices about what is best ignored and what merits your time and attention!
Paring Down
In my book Breathing Space, which has been translated into Japanese,
Chinese, Malay, and Spanish, I introduce "paring down." It's a means of
discarding what does not serve you, what does not support your work, what
does not make your home life more pleasant, what gets in the way, or
what you've been hanging on to for too long.
Where in your personal or professional life can you pare down? Check
the items below that you suspect require attention. Use this list as a
starting point, since many areas may not be of concern to you or you may
need to add some of your own areas.
| | Front hall closet
Bedroom Closet
Den Closet
Other Closet
Linen closet
Laundry room
Garage
Back porch
File drawers
File folders
Hard drive
CD collection
Clothing drawers
Shirts, blouses
Pants, skirts
Footwear
Magazines
Newspapers
Newsletters
Other publications | Kitchen cupboards
Under kitchen sink
Under bathroom sink
Medicine cabinet
Attic
Basement
Bookshelves
Other shelves
DVD collection
Book collection
DVD collection
Other collection
Coats
Ties, scarves
Handbags, pocketbooks
Briefcases, valises
Duplicates, triplicates
Other piles
Other assemblages
Other accumulations
|
| | Items I haven't used in years
Items I've never used
Items I can donate
Anything else I can think of!! |
Now It's Official: What Makes for True Happiness
"Ten Keys to True Happiness," based on a study published in New
Scientist, include:
| | 1. Wealth
2. Desire
3. Intelligence
4. Genetics
5. Beauty | 6. Friendship
7. Marriage
8. Faith
9. Charity
10. Age |
