Over the years, I have sworn off various things. Actually, it was more of a worn off than sworn off. Television programs lost quality, although there was a vast increase in quantity thanks(?) to cable. Too many choices, not have enough time to actually follow a series, so now it’s the occasional Netflix.
I do watch the morning news for the weather forecast and traffic report. Unfortunately it seems to be 80 percent commercials, so I have to pay strict attention while shaving or else I miss it.
I used to love computers, which led to a fascination with the internet. Most of what is available online is best left alone. Let’s just say that it’s a bit worse than a naked stroll through a tick infested patch of poison ivy complete with brown recluse spiders and venomous snakes. I admit that I deny reality and look for decent content. Unfortunately, the best I find are things like YouTube videos showing me how to adjust the carburetor on my weed eater.
So, what does that leave? Reading, writing, experimenting, ham radio, guitar, drums, or puttering around the house.
All things considered, much better choices.
sfnowak 
Your posts always seem to provoke thought in me, Steve. When we’re working–we always seem to be tired and we seem to lack energy, time and whatever resource we need to do the things we want to do. When we’re retired–believe it or not, we’re busier than ever doing all the things we never thought we would have to do. One FUN luxury I’ve found we can enjoy that we can do in as much or as little time as we wish–which is absolutely awe inspiring–is to look back at past great “self-help” thinkers said about people like us–of their day. One such thinker and author is Orison Swett Marden who authored many books but also the very first self-help book, He Can Who Thinks He Can.
Marden’s primary thesis is “What human beings can be, they must be.” He refers to man’s tendency to become actually what he is potentially: To become all that he wishes to be capable of becoming. And he claims every man is stranger to his greatest strength, his mightiest power, until the test of a great responsibility, a critical emergency, or a supreme crisis in his life calls it out. Then we all rise and “meet life” and know who we are.
What’s so different and distinctive about these old thinkers and authors is that they are not full of antidotes, theories, or new fangled paradigms–rather old fashioned character and personality values that we all possess like perseverance, persistence, spirit, will, confidence, faith, determination, vision, dreams, belief. And he qualifies why belief is not only important but real: “We have to BELIEVE something to be true BEFORE “knowing” it is true. We don’t have FUN and get this depth from easy reads today.