Life Beyond The Internet
Am I letting the Internet take over my life?
I sit here on my one day off this week and think about how I
have spent the last three or four months of my life.
Except for the time I put into my regular job, all of my
attention has been focused on my computer. I even eat at my desk
while continuing to work. In February, I learned how to create a
mini-site and had one up by March. I tried all kinds of
advertising, paid and unpaid, ordered every report that promised
the skills, equipment, and "secrets" to put me over the top. I
joined every group, newsletter, list builder, traffic exchange
and affiliate program that I could find. I kept writing articles
and completed an e-book. Then I put up a second mini-site and
went through the whole process again.
Today I came up for air to assess how I was doing. I made a
couple of sales here and there but only drummed up a dribble of
interest. I am so impatient - I want results immediately, sales
right now. I read this morning in one of my hundreds of e-mails,
that even the big earners on the net had to develop their income
streams over two or three years. That makes a lot of sense if
you don't get distracted (as I was) by the claims to "Put $200
in your pocket in the next two hours," or "Make $58,168 your
first month."
How gullible we all are when we set out with starry eyes,
intending to make a major splash in the electronic firmament. So
I'm going to gear back. The processes I have put in place will
keep on churning without my constant watch.
I need to get away from the shrill voices and e-mails of the
Internet gurus who promise that if I buy just one more report,
one more software system, join one more venture, I'll have it
made for life. I am sick of the deception, the manipulation, and
the downright lies of the professional marketers. I am equally
revolted by the overly slick come-ons and the amateurish,
unending e-mails from folks who can barely string a decent
sentence together trying to convince me that they are making a
fortune by sending out their monstrosities of sales letters.
I am white with fatigue at the letters from relatives and bank
officials in remote African nations offering me millions and the
phony notices of holographic lottery winnings for which I have
been randomly selected.
I need to regain my perspective and my balance. I want to spend
some quiet time a long way away from any kind of computer. I am
going to reconnect with nature, enjoy the sun, walk along the
ocean, and run my bare feet through the long grass.
We have reduced this wonderful, awe-inspiring planet of ours to
the gaudy screen of a computer and the flicker of a television
set. We are like Plato's cave dwellers, watching the dancing
shadows and believing that we are actually seeing life.