I am an information addict.  There, I said it.  I’m not afraid to admit that I have a problem. I come by it honestly, though, as one of my hobbies as a child was reading encyclopedias (mostly because we didn’t have a television, but that is another blog post).

The Internet is an enabler for someone like me.  Anytime I want to know more about a particular subject, I can google it or hit the wikipedia (which in many cases leads me down a rabbit trail of information discovery).

In way, its not all that bad, because I am continuing to learn, and learning is a key to keeping the brain active and healthy.

Where it did become a problem for me was that a lot of that information came to me in the form of RSS feeds in Google Reader (of course I DID subscribe to them).  I was easily getting upwards of 2000 entries in my Google Reader feed everyday at one point.  Combine that with following several very active twitter users, and I was hitting information overload.

With all of that information capitalizing on my time, just getting through it was taking away from the things that I want to do more, like blogging, for instance.  It was also stressful for me, because an unread item in my feed was to me an undone task on the to-do list. Getting that additional time and lowering the stress level of my life were enough of a motivation to reevaluate my habits.

So I took some steps to start cutting down on the noise.  I realized that there were hundreds of entries that I was never looking at, outside of scrolling past them in the feed. There were several hundred more that were really of no informational value at all (funny pictures or videos, and the like).  And there were several blogs with multiple posts per day, that I was not actually reading, other than skimming through them.  It was wasting my time to bother even scrolling past them.

It was somewhat painful, but I eventually made some very large cuts.  The first thing to go was the junk.  Sure, it was entertaining at times, but not always useful.  Next, I cut out the blogs I wasn’t reading regularly.  I also trimmed down my news feeds to only the top stories from two major sources.

Now, the majority of my feed subscriptions are from people – bloggers that I actually read and interact with through comments – who I feel are making positive impacts, and are sparking valuable conversation.

I’ve also made a personal commitment to continue to fine-tune my information gathering, to make the best use of my time going forward.  It’s an ongoing process, but I am already seeing the results, and if you’re reading this, you are too.

Never have a pet that could do you in, no matter how cool you think it is.

I remember reading an online article/blog post titled “Beware the Myspace Angles.” The author’s intent was to humorously warn guys who may be trying to meet women online (specifically Myspace), never to trust what they see in a profile picture. They demonstrated that those profile pictures are usually taken from an angle that most flatters the person pictured, who after further investigation, was found not to be nearly as attractive as the picture might suggest.

These women, I’m sure, were just trying to put their best face forward (after careful cropping and other photo adjustments).  You can see in a video posted here, how this same approach is used by the media as well.

In the relative anonymity of the internet, it is a lot easier to reflect who we want to be, instead of who we really are. This is not a new phenomenon. It predates the internet, and can be found in every social circle, and most especially in the church.  The fact is:

• Christians have rarely been open and honest about their personal struggles.
• This lack of honesty stems mostly from the fear being judged and/or condemned by other Christians, and partly from being too proud to admit to having problems.
• Christians have a reputation of being quick to judge, and neither willing nor able to show mercy.

As a result, we have a lot of people putting their best face forward, while never getting the help and support they need to deal with their issues. They know what to say and do to give the impression that they are fine, all while fighting their battles alone.

As Christians:

• We who are strong should bear the burdens of those who are weak.
• We should confess our faults one to another and pray for one another that we may be healed.

We have a responsibility to help those who need it, and that we should not fear to be honest about our struggles, because our prayers for each other will bring healing to all of us.

I believe that the key component in this is humility, not the false humility that we display when we down-talk ourselves and refuse to receive complements from others, but the real humility that comes from the knowledge that we are inherently helpless to do anything to change ourselves;  that our lives are totally dependent on God’s strength. Paul the Apostle wrote that God’s strength is made perfect in weakness, and I believe that our inability to come to terms with our weakness keeps us from experiencing God’s strength.

My hope is that we all can find ourselves in a group of people with whom we can we can truly exercise these simple truths. That we can bear one anothers burdens, we can confess our faults to each other, and truly pray for one another.  That we can truly be ourselves, and stop worrying about the angles.

It is better to do one thing and do it well, than to do many things and do them poorly.

It is widely accepted that the best kind of learning comes from experience. Andy Andrews, through his character Jones in “The Noticer” refutes this claim, saying it is better to learn from other people’s experiences.  I tend to agree with this assessment.  Especially since this approach has the potential to keep you from repeating the same mistakes that others have made.

Inspired by the real-life Jones, Andy Andrews has read over two hundred biographies, learning valuable life lessons in the process – some of which he has turned into a couple of New York Times bestsellers.  Imagine the number of lifetimes a person would have to live to amass the knowledge that he was able to absorb in just a few years, just by learning from the experiences of others.

When you think about it, most of the Bible is biographical, and many Sunday school lessons and sermons are based on this very same principle – that we can learn from the experiences of others.  The Bible is a great resource for this type of learning.

I have recently adopted this approach to learning. I’ve read several ’spiritual memoirs’ written in the past few years. I’ve also read some books that are focused on specific issues of spirituality, but include elements taken directly from life experiences. I’ve also been reading some ‘classics’ from other Christian authors on a variety of topics.

As it happens, I think I may have actually have learned some things.  I will be writing about some of this newly-learned information in some upcoming posts called “Things I’ve Learned From Books” (catchy title, huh?) or TILFB.

I will say that the very first thing that I learned is – that you can learn things from books.  You probably already knew that.

Here you go, more of my favorite links tweeted by my twitter pals:

Interview with the FTC’s Richard Cleland – Blogger Edward Champion questions the FTC’s assertion that bloggers who receive products from companies for review are being compensated when they keep the product they received.

10 Things to Tell People Who Swear You’re the Lennon to their McCartney – A very intelligent response to a common problem for artists and musicians – the uninvited collaborator.

How Much Should You Reveal About Yourself Online? – Being 100% honest without revealing 100%.

My Experience With Commenting – Some advice on the how and how not to comment on blog posts.

Would Mother Teresa Have Used Twitter? – Thoughts on living in an increasingly connected society.

The 46 Stages of Twitter – How you get from Anti-twitter activist to twitter addict.

Over at Elizabeth Esther’s blog, all of her readers are picking their favorite posts from last month.

She has had 80 plus participants for this iteration, so take a visit over and check out everyone’s picks.

I picked my first post of the month, Looking For a Window, which actually kicked off my busiest month of blogging ever.  I feel that this post was my most honest so far, and may be the best I’ve written so far.  If you haven’t read that post yet, hit the link and take a read.