Great News Today & Some History Too

I've just received my Master Practitioner Strategist certification in Neuro Linguistic Programming learning all kinds of wonderful facts, which I will continue to share with you over the coming weeks and months. For example, did you know that information flows into our minds at a rate of 2-4 million bits per second, and yet we can only digest 134 bits per second? Breaking News That means that the overflow of information floods our minds at a similar speed of water blasting from an open fire hydrant. We "filter" what actually enters our minds by deleting information that doesn't make sense, distorting information based upon our beliefs, and/or by generalizing.

With that in mind, and some facts to back me up, let me assure you that the media has over generalized and grossly distorted nearly each days' news these past 3 weeks, with the positive facts coming to light on the days following their actual occurrences. Specifically, on the initial days of the wide point spread gains and losses, only 1-2 days afterward were we served up the actual percentages of said swings, which were far more spectacular in terms of being able to frame this activity; the percentages were far more noteworthy relative to historical percentage swings. To herald that these were the "biggest point swings ever" was true, yet NOT helpful information to the investing public insomuch as the percentage drops did not warrant such 24 hour, edge-of-the-chair myopia.

Everyone has a task; the press is excelling at theirs. They've captivated the attention of people who never even knew what the DOW Jones was a year ago. Let's now loosen the juggernaut they have on our minds and attention and think about our individual responses to this financial situation.It's been said you can't buy happiness. Happiness currency is always liquid, always available to those who deal in it daily, or those who dare to learn to deal in it daily. It's our choice. We owe it to ourselves to marshal our own resources, when those outside our control are less predictable, and captain our own ships, especially when the waters are turbulent.

Well why do we automatically connote or measure happiness in available financial currency then? Why are we myopic about what our investments total each and every day end? We need to understand history a bit better because I think it was Mark Twain who once said, "History may not repeat itself, but it'll surely rhyme". Historically we've endured depressions and recessions and voila, there are people around-real people-who lived through it. How did they? Often with stories of personal fortitude and community support. The great depression is a time that will remain singular in scope and magnitude in my opinion; we aren't anywhere near the financial calamity of the great depression. Nor do I think the current financial situation is permanent, or will take decades to extricate ourselves from.