News Diet

As a futures and options trader I was constantly glued to the news. The TV was never off. I’d constantly refresh Twitter for up to the minute vomit.

This has all changed. For the last 6 months I’ve been on a news diet. I’ve lost weight. Lost weight AND gained lean muscle mass. I feel better and sleep better. I wake up in the mornings refreshed and ready to go. I’ve got tons more energy. I also found several hours of extra time to do truly important things in my life. My outlook is 100% improved.

None of the hyperbole being discussed/debated/argued on the news during the last 6 months has come to pass. None of it. ZERO. None of the news headlines materialized. The gloom, the doom, the fear. No financial meltdowns, collapses, calamities, catastrophes, disasters or Armageddon events. Virtually none. Not one. I’m still here. You’re still here. The sun is coming up over the mountains. The news media continues to mostly just state the obvious, which can largely be seen by looking out the window.

As far as I can tell by any reasonable metric, NOTHING puked up in any newsroom, by an anchor, reporter or news producer in any headline labeled as “Breaking News” has happened. Nothing from any stone-age newspaper or monolithic, two steps behind Twitter, television news channel has come to pass. It’s all fear mongering.

~ The IRS has not been abolished
~ The Federal Reserve has not been abolished
~ Barack Obama is still in office
~ The Affordable Care Act has not been repealed
~ The 2016 elections are the Republicans to lose
~ Politicians are sending desperate pleas for help ($money$) so they can fix the problems they created
~ If the Democrats/Republicans win it’s the end of our country as we know it
~ Democrats and Republicans hate the Tea Party movement
~ Hillary Clinton is the Devil
~ Any Republican candidate for President is the Anti-Christ
~ Chris Christie is still too fat to be President (I’ve decided he wants to be fat, why would you want to be President)
~ Vladimir Putin is Hitler (I don’t know, maybe he is..)
~ The IRS and Benghazi Scandals are still open investigations, nobody has been held accountable
~ There is violence in the Middle East
~ Terrorism is on the rise
~ Your religion is bad
~ My religion is good
~ Global warming is more serious because we now really know it’s actually: climate change
~ Corporate earnings are a mixed bag
~ Corporate America is the enemy
~ The stock market is still going up and down
~ The rich get richer
~ The poor get poorer
~ There are no jobs
~ Education needs to be reformed
~ Immigration needs to be reformed
~ The dollar has not collapsed.
~ Oil prices are now a concern because they’re getting too low.
~ Gold has NOT become the only way we can protect ourselves
~ Bird Flu and Swine Flu fears have been replaced by Ebola
~ MLB survived another season in the post-steroid era
~ The NFL survives despite the fact most starters are rapists/axe murderers/domestic abusers
~ The NBA is surviving an idiot franchise owner who was/is/accused of/ being a racist
~ Critics are bashing Taylor Swift who continues to mind her own business and do her thing
~ Christmas will be canceled this year because of some Atheist rant or offended individual
~ Worst of all Justin Bieber, Kim Kardashian and Kanye East/West or North, whatever his name is – have not gone away

…I’m feeling sick again. Queasy… But I have broken the cycle. Dislocated myself from the chains. I’m going away for another six months. I have my own problems to solve. We’re all trying to survive. To live and do whatever it is we’re suppose to be doing. This is what’s important. Not the B.S. news.

Call, text or tweet me if anything actually happens. Now where’s my bulletproof coffee?