Hey, I’m Addison. You’re reading Bigger Than Me, a newsletter about mastering the skill of compassion. Sign up or scroll to the good stuff.

"Want to learn? Want to grow?"

"Need a Break? Want to relax?"

"Need the kids to quiet down?"

"Hate the silence when no one's around?"

"Stressed? Anxious? Bored? Sad?"

"Happy? Joyous? Scared? Mad?"

"Content is the key: everywhere, immediate, and most of it's free."

"With Content, you can address any issue to your satisfaction."

"It's why 99% of people choose Content to address their problems."

Did you know…

Traditional media’s numbers are also huge:

We have an incomprehensible amount of choice in all of our content today.

This mass of information covers every category, genre, interest, and subject imaginable.

It can make us laugh, move us to tears, distract us from boredom, fuel our anger, satisfy our curiosity, grow us professionally, and much more.

In this vast treasure trove (and sometimes trash heap) of often free media, we have options to address any possible problem or question.

Sounds like an amazing deal, right?

Being a movie buff who used to run my own version of Netflix with 1000s of movies and shows, normally I'd agree.

Lately, though, I've learned a hard truth about how I consume content.

I see time as my most precious commodity.

When I decide to engage with any piece of content, I'm actively trading a portion of my limited 24 hours for a piece of information or entertainment.

For this to be worth it, it should be an equitable trade.

However, I've realized I'm often a lousy judge of the value of my precious minutes.

Case and point, this all-too-familiar slice of my life.

It's the middle of a typical workday and I want a break.

I open up the Threads app on my phone thinking, "I'll post this one idea and then jump back into my writing."

I post my Thread but start scrolling instead of closing the app.

Before I realize it, my 10-minute posting time has ballooned into 60 minutes of a fruitless back-and-forth argument with someone I don’t even know.

Coming out of my stupor, I hastily dive back into work, fighting feelings of guilt the whole time.

I just “paid” 50 minutes to the app I didn't intend to spend.

Later that same night, I was tired after a long day of work and running around with my family.

I grab a snack and settle in to watch a quick TV episode before bed.

One empty bag of potato chips and an entire 6-episode docuseries later, I'm staring at the dreaded "4 hours until alarm sounds," message on my phone.

I begrudgingly settle in for a night of restless sleep.

Now I've spent 4 more hours I hadn’t budgeted.

The next day I felt tired and unfocused.

I'm having trouble staying awake at my keyboard, let alone getting any writing done.

Struggling through another hour while getting nowhere fast, I mindlessly pull my phone out to take a "quick" break.

What do I open?

Youtube.

Now I've started a loop:

You get the idea.

If you can relate to this cycle, you've probably also met...

Do you remember that cheesy 90's D.A.R.E. program PSAs?

For those unfamiliar, they promoted a program aimed at teaching grade school aged kids practical means to avoid drug addiction.

From those and other drug PSAs that interrupted my TV viewing as a kid, I got the message loud and clear that the best way to avoid addiction was to "say no" and then stay far away from pushy people.

There's a problem though.

What do you do if the same "people" who sell you everything are trying to get you hooked?

This is the case everywhere I get my content from.

It would be impossible for me to sort through the massive torrent of content I mentioned above. That’s why the places I “shop” with my time do it with computers.

Their algorithms choose which content I see, when I see it, and in the case of digital content, roughly in what order I consume it.

They are incentivized to maximize my time consuming their content.

The algorithms have been trained on billions of hours of human behavior to do this one task very very well.

Getting me in a loop is baked into the goal of each platform and app where I get content.

They have no incentive to stop until I’m bled dry.

Any time I overspend on media becomes time I take from another source:

When I'm baited into overpaying my time, my relationships suffer.

To combat this, protecting my time around content now looks like this:

These steps help me avoid mindlessly trading time I don’t have in the pursuit of more pleasure, instead of investing it in the people I care about most.

However, when it is the appropriate time, ridiculous, silly stuff like this is always worth it.

Until next time,
Addison.