Encroachment

You have to be careful with the amount of noise that you allow to enter your life. It can come in many forms. You have to take a look at your own barely-unique circumstances and decide for yourself what constitutes signal and what constitutes noise.

I have written about this obliquely several times. The cable TV was an easy call, the cell phone went recently, and I have went through one abortive attempt at getting rid of the high-speed internet. I cannot say as I miss any of this. We just don't watch much in the way of TV, so cable was the easiest to let go. The loss of the cell phone went barely noticed, you can live quite nicely without being in constant contact with the trivial and overblown fretting of your friends and loved ones. As soon as the free six months end, I will probably get rid of the high speed internet.

You allow the things that distract you to enter your life as a series of decisions. Most of them are done for fairly innocent reasons; watch some TV; be able to talk in the car; the internet is an educational opportunity. But they begin to carve into your life. flooding you with spurious noise that distorts your already feeble chances of being having sufficient time and thought to make good decisions.

Try getting along without some of the essentials that you have defined. You will find that your life is not less rich without them. From my experience, the loss of noise allows me to better see the signal.