I don’t watch the news. Spice and I don’t even have a television. I don’t spend hours going over the latest news/outrages/spin/whatever on the internet.
After years of being a “news junkie”, after letting myself get all worked up over everything all the time, it finally dawned on me what a collosal waste of time, effort and mental energy it was.
Why ignore the news?
It’s all lies. It’s all spin. Nobody tells the truth. NOBODY.
Several years ago, I said “to hell with it” and tuned out. Instead of all that time and mental energy I wasted trying to figure “what” “they” were doing next, I started taking care of my OWN stuff.
Author Steven Covey, in his seminal work on behavior “The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People“, explains his ideas of Circle of Influence and Circle of Concern. “Instead of reacting to or worrying about conditions over which they have little or no control, proactive people focus their time and energy on things they can control. The problems, challenges, and opportunities we face fall into two areas–Circle of Concern and Circle of Influence. Proactive people focus their efforts on their Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about: health, children, problems at work. Reactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Concern–things over which they have little or no control: the national debt, terrorism, the weather. Gaining an awareness of the areas in which we expend our energies in is a giant step in becoming proactive.”
Prepping does not = News
I want to be a highly effective prepper, and I want YOU to be a highly effective prepper.
I understand that 99.99 percent of the things discussed on the nation news are entirely outside of my Circles of Concern or Influence… therefore, I expunge them from my world.
Mexican’s coming over the border? I can’t stop that. President being an idiot, a traitor, whatever? I can’t stop that. If I can’t stop it, then instead of wasting my time on it I am going to work on things I CAN do something about… like take care of my family, my preps and my local situation.
I’m sure most of you will think I am irresponsible or even an idiot, but to be frank I am not an “All-Hat, No Cattle” prepper, and a large part of the reason for that is I don’t waste a lot of time bashing my head against the wall over things I can do nothing about.
Nobody who CAN make a difference cares one damned bit about my opinion, and frankly, nobody that can make a difference probably cares one bit about yours either. Y’all know what is right, and what you have got to do, and y’all know what you are prepared to do, no matter what anybody else says and does. You are going to take care of your own selves and families no matter what, right? Well… if that’s the case, then to heck with it, I say work on what’s you and yours and to heck with paying attention to people who won’t even listen to us anyway.
I say let’s put our own houses in order, cause the devil’s gonna take the hindmost.
