How will I ever get through all this information?

During the late sixties, I had a couple of pen pals. During the summer months, we’d keep in touch by writing letters to one another on pretty stationary. Since their stationary looked better than mine did, I made up for it with my calligraphy-like penmanship in different colors.

We’ll come back to the good old days in a moment.

WHAT HAPPENED during the last forty-five years?

Word is: there’s just too much information!

Actually, that’s more than a word–it’s a sentence–an exclamation, to be exact.

Why do we feel so overwhelmed, stressed, and anxious?  AAAAARRRRGGGGGHHH!

When will we ever get through all this information?

The truth is we won’t. Period. I have trouble admitting this.

I still think I can do it all.

Perhaps, I’m stuck with memories of the long days during childhood. The days felt endless–especially, during the school year. Life would last forever.

Now, in my fifties, the days, weeks, months, and seasons move so fast, I have to nail the clocks on the wall to prevent them from flying off. How can I hold onto time when the clocks can’t?

Reality pushes us to decide what we can do.

I just want to reminisce as I reflect once more.

The older we are the less time we have to spread across all the things we want to do. Like the friend who has a terminal diagnosis, our limited lifetime forces us to decide where we want to focus our attention.

Time does not judge. It marches on. We can’t save some for a rainy day. Time keeps moving rain or shine.

It’s up to us to decide how we want to use our time.

I will reflect on my past. I will skim other information. I will save some things, but I will get rid of most.

The numbers in these articles are eye opening. They help us to better face reality.

There’s just too much information to keep up.

• In 2010, then CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt was credited in TechCrunch with writing: Every 2 Days We Create as Much Information as We Did Up to 2003.
• Three years later, Newstex posts this Infographic on the cost of Content Clutter. Click on the link or scroll down to the end of this article to view the Infographic.
•  Last year, in the spring of 2014, Josh James posted an Infographic: Data Never Sleeps 2.0 of How Much Data is Generated Every Minute.

Can we ever go back to the Good Old Days?

My two pen pals and I wrote three letters every two weeks. At least, that’s the letter-writing pace we set at the start of summer. By the mid-summer (a blink of an eye in Wisconsin), that number had dropped to one every two weeks. Still, we eagerly anticipated a letter from the mailman (that’s what we called mail carriers back then). Sometimes, there was no mail and he walked by our home.

We hardly write letters by hand anymore. Who has the time? We’re too busy emailing back and forth. Some of us write dozens of emails daily while others write at least one.

When LIFE grows too overwhelming and you feel like a Model T trying to keep up on one of Los Angeles’ freeways, consider the speed at which information is growing–from a Model T’s 20 to 40 miles per hour to satellites traveling at 17,500 miles per hour!

It’s getting harder and harder to jump off the information super highway and it’s also harder to keep up to speed.

Photo credit: The CHIVE  Facts that show just how far the human race has come. One of 32 photos.

Infographic by: Newstex.