The Profound Wisdom of a Simple Life

At this point in my life, I've developed a pretty consistent routine for my day.  I get up around 6:00 AM, head to the gym, come home, shower, have some coffee and maybe a bit of breakfast, and I check my email, touch in on social media, and read the news while I drink my coffee and eat my sometimes-breakfast.

Every... stinking... day... that I do this, I find something that pulls me from the peace and reverie of my morning.  Whether it's the latest stupidity of our elected officials, a story about a mass murder half a country away, or an unhinged rant from someone on social media, I always manage to find something that raises my blood pressure.  This, of course, is the electronic media companies doing exactly what they're supposed to do... find a sensationalistic story or tidbit that will engage and entice me for the maximum possible period of time, so they can present me with "personalized and relevant" advertisements.  It's not about keeping me informed, and it's not about building relationships.  It's about getting me to spend money.

I'd like to clarify that I consciously realize what's going on, and I've gotten pretty good at recognizing click bait.  I avoid stories with headlines about Entity A "destroying" or "owning" Opponent B.  I steer away from articles that start with "People do this [or these X things] to achieve (insert objective here.)  I scroll on past the latest rant of the day from my friends on social media.  But it's not enough.

Generally, I try to read the news so that I am an informed citizen. I was raised to believe that it's my civic duty to know what's going on in the world around me.  I delivered newspapers as a boy, and when I got home, I'd read that very same paper while I ate my morning cereal before going off to school.  When I was in the military, I subscribed to Time and Newsweek magazines so that I could understand why I was deployed to remote locations throughout the world.  I watched the evening news so I could hold my elected officials accountable when I cast my vote in elections.  I talked about events and ideas with friends and family.  Over time, my method of ingesting information evolved from print to electronic media, but the underlying rationale generally remained the same... that core belief that awareness is my duty.  I've also come to realize that this duty at its root brings me zero peace and happiness.

If you take a look at my past posts, you will notice that I tend to write about two things:  politics, and my personal life.  I suspect you'll also notice that when I talk about the goings-on in the world at large, it tends to be criticizing or critiquing things I disagree with, whereas my personal stories come from a place of gratefulness and peace.  For the majority of my life, I couldn't understand how someone could choose to ignore the world around us.  After all, we live in a dumpster fire.  How can we tackle the latest COW (Crisis Of the Week) if we don't even know about it?!?  Heck, I even ran for the state legislature because I desired to be the change I sought.

At the end of the day though, nothing changed, except my frustration level.  A few years back, I went on a week-long vacation and because I was off grid, I had no access to the outside world.  It was just me, those around me, and the events of the day... exploring the wilderness, and meeting my immediate needs of food, water and shelter.  When I got back from vacation, I fell into my old pattern of catching up on the news of the day; and I consciously noticed how much it riled me up.  I instantly wanted to drop out of society and live a simple life.

Since that time, I've slowly modified my behavior and reached the internal compromise that I alluded to earlier in my post.  I still read the news, and I still cruise social media, but I avoid click bait articles and I ignore rage posts on social media.  I'm still a bit agitated, as even recent posts can attest, but my blood no longer boils.  I still hope for a better world, but acknowledge that my ability to bring about that change is quite minimal.  I've come to understand the profound wisdom of a simple life, and am consciously working toward it.