For those of you who don't know me, I thrive on information. That's one of the reasons for the better part of eight years I subscribed to dozens of information outlets and a handful of YahooGroups lists. Even if you factor out the netizen's most profane word: SPAM, that amounts to over a hundred e-mails each day for me to sift through, prioritize, scan (I'd be lying if I said I "read" each one), and either file or delete each one.

Needless to say, each day was a challenge and if, heaven forbid, I should miss a day or two or three or I was without Internet access for a spell, I had my work cut out for me!

I've always had a curious dichotomy when it came to what I was putting in my head. On the one hand, I embraced politics. I loved politics and knowing what was happening to this person or that country. I felt that knowing all the little details made me a more informed citizen. On the other hand, I embraced Universal Truths and the Secret. I believe in the Law of Attraction and in the importance of carefully screening what I put into my head.

My recent issues with my satellite broadband provider and total lack of access to my daily ration of Internet crack for two weeks led me to an epiphany. I can survive without knowing all the minutiae of the world. I don't need to spend the first two hours of every day sifting, prioritizing, scanning, and filing. In fact, I don't need to fill my head with otherwise useless information. After all, if I can't do anything about it, why should I spend time and energy dwelling on it?

So, I embarked upon a new journey. This past week, every time an e-mail entered my inbox, I considered its importance to where I "want" to be in my life. If it failed the test, I hit the UNSUBSCRIBE ME link and deleted it. If it was a list that I thought was still useful, but had lots of individual messages, I changed my preferences to get a daily digest of the list messages.

I have to admit that it was both liberating to take back my inbox and empowering to release the mental energy that it took to maintain that old behavior. What I now have is an e-mail inbox that I can sift through and actually read in about five minutes. I still get the occasional message that requires me to hit the delete button, but at least I don't find myself wondering if I missed out on some tidbit of information that wouldn't do me a bit of good knowing anyway.