Shutting Down Inputs
I wrote a while back that continuous data acquisition at high speed was making me jittery. Too many websites, too much concern about missing an important news or political item, and I really felt like it had changed my inner speed, jacked it up to a level that made me not feel good.Too fast. Too much.
At that time, I tried to slow down, although I don't even remember what I was doing. Meditating a little, maybe.
Late last week, though, I really noticed it again. I don't like this feeling, and Eli 14.8 is coming up on some very, very important weeks in his life. I needed to be able to project complete calm, to be a soothing and grounded influence.
So I did something I haven't done in my whole life, really: I shut off the Internet.
Not completely. I still look at Deadspin and RPS every day. Puck Daddy, for NHL news. Penny Arcade on M-W-F.
That's about it, though, and I only look at them a couple of times a day.
It's a bit of a radical approach, but I felt like I needed to try something radical.
Also, I'm trying very hard to only do one thing at a time. If I'm in the living room watching TV, I don't have my Surface with me, or my phone. One thing at a time.
If you're wondering if this has had an effect, it has, and it's fairly significant. I've been doing this for four days now, and my mind isn't racing nearly as much. Before, it was racing almost all the time, with many, many streams of thought racing along next to each other, often colliding.
The reason I write about this is because I absolutely know I'm not the only one experiencing this. I'd be willing to bet that it's a very common phenomenon, and probably some of you are feeling the same way.
What I'm doing is working. I can feel it.
So if you feel the same way I've been feeling, you might try this. It's not an instant fix, but it's steadily helping me.
<< Home