.

My wife and I have a morning routine.  We make our coffee, I get to eat something that tastes like wood, Catherine toasts up her chocolate croissant — and we sit and watch the news.

Then the adorable anchors tell us today’s ‘breaking news.’

Let’s see what’s today’s wonderful stories were to kick off the lovely day…

“Gas Prices Continue to Soar.”  “Relations between US and China are Increasingly Intense.” “Inflation Climbing to Record Heights.”  “Russia Confirms Anti-Satellite Missile Test.” “Covid Cases up 17% This Week.”  “Woman Arrested for Punching Southwest Airlines Employee.”

That’s fun.

Thanks for the scoop.  That just got me all pumped up for my day ahead.

This isn’t the pep talk we need in the morning.

Here’s my take.

We’re all just trying to make a little bit a difference in the sandbox we play in every day.

Maybe they’re not the biggest sandboxes, but they’re our sandboxes.  And we love all the people in our sandboxes.

And those  ‘breaking news’ items aren’t in our sandboxes.

So I tried something today, just for kicks.  It worked out great.  Might want to give it a try.

Turn it off.

Just turn the damn news off.

The coffee suddenly tasted so much better.  And Catherine was in such a good mood she gave me a corner nibble of her chocolate croissant.

When your car radio starts in on a need-to-know story about some guy in some town in Arkansas that laced meth in three local salad bars?

Turn it off.

When folks at a cocktail party who think they’re the next Rene Descartes and are sweating too much start beating the meter at some end of the political dial?

Turn it off. 

Take you and your happy drink – to the next table.

And when I’m catching the evening news tonight, maybe I’ll see how good that fast-forward button works.

And the newspaper tomorrow?  I’ll read it – but I’ll just skip all the stories with the tagline of “Life as you know it for you and your children is absolutely toast.”

And if we did things like that all day long, I’ll bet life will give us a little prize.

A little bit of time.

Time for us to do something else instead of listening and reading and watching all that.

Maybe time to take a short morning walk with my wife.  Maybe she’ll let me hold her hand on the way back.

Maybe time to stop during the day, close the door in my office and the world, and take a little 15-minute nap.

Maybe time to call my kids and tell them about some little moment from a long time ago that reminds me how extraordinary they are.

And maybe time to look in the mirror and remember how absolutely beautiful…

Our sandbox is.

— Yours,

Jimmy Dunne