Being aware of goings on

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If you ever walk into a restaurant and notice the guy sitting in the far corner, that’s me.

I’m sure it falls under some phobia or category of paranoia, but I like to be aware of my surroundings.

When I’m in a crowded room, the best place I’ve found is with my back against the wall where I can watch people coming and going.

No, I didn’t have a traumatic childhood. I’m not a detective or a secret agent. I’m just a guy who likes to know what’s happening around me.

That might be the reason why I have my email, Skype, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, etc., open all the time. If I’m on the internet, I’m usually sitting on Google News, occasionally following an interesting headline link to its source.

If not that, I’m checking what Gold, Silver, oil and the Dow Jones are doing. It’s become my week day routine.

While there are probably more indicators I could be looking at, those I’ve mentioned are readily available and up until recently (say pre-2008), are pretty good bellwethers of the economy at large.

The downturn of 2008 caught a lot of people off guard and unprepared. Fortunately for me, the business I was in had a tendency to thrive more in bad economic times. While it was never stress free, we made it through, and I made some financial decisions then that I’ve not regretted.

You see, some place, somewhere, there are people whose action or inaction eventually affect our lives. We’d like to think everyone of them has our best interest at heart, but aside from such a wish being utterly false, I don’t even think it’s possible. That would require a unity in this country, if not the world, that has never existed.

I said I wasn’t going to stray into politics on these pages, and I won’t. I bring up the topic, because regardless of who you are or what you believe, knowing all you can know about what’s going on can only help you when life takes a left turn.

I don’t believe we could ever afford a personal head-in-the-sand mentality, but now’s certainly not the time to adopt one. If more things were rosy and bright, rather than gloom and doom, with more gloom and doom in the forecast, I’d say, you’d might get away with taking a week or two off from life. Just unplug and getaway like everyone says.

If we’re talking getting rid of distractions like video games, “reality” TV and following what Justin or One Direction are doing, then unplugging is just fine. However, not knowing what’s going on in your own life, your family, your neighborhood, your town, is never a good thing. More and more, it’s not a good thing on the county, state or national levels either.

Unfortunately, work and family responsibilities don’t just poof out of existence or move to the background. Most of us have plenty to do without spending whatever time we might have trying to stay informed. But not knowing what you can is folly. What you don’t know can hurt you, and badly. Ignorance is only bliss until it slaps you upside the head.

So, how do you stay informed?

Are you on Facebook or Twitter, posting photos of what you or the kid did last night? Both have access to information. Most governmental agencies and officials, local and not-so-local, are involved in social media, too. Wouldn’t take much to get those on your feed, and take only a few more minutes a day to scan them for something noteworthy.

Knowing more about what’s going on, and doing what you can to prepare or hedge against it, can only help. So you spend some time and money on things you might never really need. Big deal. Most of us do that anyway, on things we thought we really wanted.

I realize it’s getting harder to know where to go for accurate information, or who to trust. It’s going to take some time. But it’s worth it. You might feel a little wary, and a little less devil-may-care, but older and wiser has its perks.

Then when the zombie apocalypse comes, you can spirit you and yours to the mountain top bunker and pick those brain eaters off one by one. Can’t do that if you’re caught flat footed in the middle of an episode of Honey Boo Boo or Dancing With the Stars, now can you?