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Despite
the constant bad publicity, getting older has many benefits. Life experience is
the most undervalued benefit of aging. The privilege of being able to hang out
on life's street corners in grown-up's clothes for a few decades gives us valuable
chapters of personal history to use as benchmarks for making decisions on old
themes. Having a personal history of experience gives me a reference point to
make decisions for new projects and ideas. I cherish my life experiences as a
great asset. My
first decade of life experience included operating a black and white tube type
TV. Its metal logo declared to all it was a DuMont brand. Solid state (means turns
on instantly for you younger readers) was just hitting the technology circles.
Watching my favorite TV shows in the early 60's took some planning. Tube TV sets
had to be "warmed up. " That is, turned on
about 5 minutes before the start of "Roy Rogers" and "Sky King".
The vacuum tubes and the picture tube had to heat up before a picture would appear.
There were three networks to choose from while they were on the air. An Indian
head test pattern would appear for early morning risers to view before Saturday
morning cartoons. Seth
Godin, author of Purple Cow, wrote a perceptive
blog entry a few days ago. He named " The Curse
of Great Expectations" to make a point about the over analysis we tend to
do with everything that we work on. The abundance of readily available information
is overwhelming. He wrote that we have too many benchmarks to make comparisons
and lists and lists of personal and business bests to analyze and draw useless
conclusions. Data floods our little worlds daily in a torrent though radio, TV,
printed news and the Internet. It is a case of information overload for me. I
get those little hourglass icons in my eyeballs and the word "processing"
on my forehead as I try to comprehend it all. In
my wonder years with the DuMont it didn't take
long to figure out " there was nothing good on".
Choices were limited. Today, our children spend half an hour surfing through 100
channels to come up with the same conclusion. As
I analyze our problem of information abundance and analysis paralysis in our personal
and business lives, I ask questions. How much time do we waste in a day sorting
through the blizzard of junk mail and spam, sifting through more statistics on
diets, nutrition and weight loss, and trying to make sense of one more new upgrade
plan for our cell phone? I'll leave the research and analysis for the answers to
those questions for you. I have had my fill of statistics and reports for a while.
Life experience allows me to know without looking there is nothing good on TV.
I do not need to read any more reports about the benefits of exercise and lowering
cholesterol. Instead, I am going to lace up my PF Flyers and take a walk in the
park. When I'm tired, I'll have a seat and make my own
brand of benchmark. | 
