I recently sat with a woman who had a repeated complaint: information overload.
“Explain how this is affecting you personally,” I said, curious.
“I work all day sitting at my desk in a chair where I barely move but for the occasion to fill my coffee cup and empty my bladder,” she said. “A quota keeps me chained when it should be more about quality.”
She let out a lingering, resigned breath before continuing. “All day, information filtering in and out. All day, steps and processes, deadlines and fire drills. All day, phone calls and emails, meetings and greetings.”
“How long have you been at this pace?” I asked.
“Feels much longer than reality, only because my body is aging from neglect at full speed. If brain activity would equate to body building, I would be able to lift the world on my shoulders,” she said, adding, “but, as it is, I’m no Olympic god.”
“The weight without relief is taking its toll,” I said. “Or it is something more?”
“Well, when I do manage to get out of my office and grab a bite to eat, or scroll on my phone, watch TV, or something of the like, the choices are too much, too many, and, yet nothing of substance. Everything is more while simultaneously offering less value.”
“I agree,” I said.
“Even the menu has too many choices: I don’t want to read a book after looking at my computer all day. Not to mention, the best selection might be buried by all the subpar options. I want quality – something nourishing and satisfying. Seems that combination is in short supply.”
“I agree,” I said again.
“Then there’s social media, which has such a plethora of slanted news and rabbit holes that I fear I’m missing what’s really happening – really happening beyond the smokescreens. Heck, I could miss a war because social media is all about tiny, stupid battles. And television these days… so many choices for movies, series, and even live TV… but the majority of it is just crap. Disturbing, poorly done, yuck.”
“When did we begin to think more was better?” I asked.
“I don’t know that ‘we’ ever did. It’s intentional,” she said.
“Intentional?” I asked.
“Yes, think about it. Lawmakers use pork-barrel legislation to buy votes by adding fillers, often unrelated to the bill’s main agenda. The same is true with media: they inundate us to the point of numbness with an overload of stories so that we fail to notice when the narrative becomes more slanted, and we, along with them. Their messaging becomes a subliminal tagline to hang their dirty laundry. And what do we do? Take it off the line, fold it, and call it our own because we are too tired to think for ourselves… or too busy.”
She looked at me; her sunken eyes betrayed her smile. “I know what I’m talking about. I live it. And so do you, whether you realize it or not. It is beyond obvious, and that’s how the devil gets away with it. We have made things so obvious and accepted so much that we have forgotten what should be unacceptable. That’s spiritual warfare to those who are paying attention.”
“Explain,” I said.
“Porn is everywhere in varying degrees. Right before our eyes at the click of the mouse or scrolling through movie titles. Division is no different. In less than a minute online, we are reading about us-versus-them, or just about them wanting to make us the bad guys. It’s so obvious, so stupid; and yet, the devil is smart. He’s saturating the world with debauchery and noise so that we become desensitized to it—making it normal to have ‘moral free’ websites, classrooms, and relationships. It becomes acceptable to harm someone if we are offended, almost honorable.”
“Honorable,” I said under my breath. “Do people today even know what that really means?”
She took a sip of coffee. “Is it too early to turn this into a glass of wine?” she asked, only half joking. “Seriously, being yourself has shifted from expressing personal agency to being offended when others do not acknowledge or celebrate your perspective. And then….” She stopped.
“Go on,” I said.
“Assimilation has become almost a curse word. Various cultures come to America, which was once regarded as a melting pot. Our differences, however, are not being amalgamated for the greater betterment. Instead, we have become sharp barbs, each piercing one another with conflicting beliefs, some of which are starkly divergent and pose a threat to our safety and well-being. There is no longer a sense of coming together, and people are getting sick of it. Sick of the entitled hatred. Mark my words, we will begin to witness more and more vigilantism where justice and a moral compass once prevailed.”
“Makes me think of the old quote, ‘an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,’” I said.
“Indeed. Society has become the blind leading the blind, with many individuals feeling fearful, enraged, indifferent, ignorant, arrogant, or overly entitled. Either way, most live playing offense or defense rather than in harmony.”
We sat in silence for a moment, the weight of her words settling between us. Outside the window, the world rushed on: phones buzzing, screens glowing, notifications piling up like unpaid debts.
Finally, I asked the only question that seemed to matter: “So what do we do with all this?”
She leaned back, her tired eyes meeting mine now with surprising clarity. “We start by intentionally adding value and choosing less. Less noise. Less scrolling. Less outrage. Less consumption. We reclaim our attention like it’s one of the most valuable resources we have, because it is. We turn off the firehose and learn to drink again from a single, clean stream. For me, that’s the living water Christ provides.”
I nodded. “We have to protect our minds and our time the way we’d protect our children from poison.”
She gave a small, weary smile. “It won’t be popular. It won’t be easy. But numbness is not the same as peace, and distraction is not the same as living. The world may keep trying to blind us, but we don’t have to hand over our eyes so willingly.”
As I watched her gather her things and walk back into her strained day, I realized she wasn’t just describing the problem. She was issuing a quiet rebellion.
And maybe that’s where it starts: one person at a time, choosing clarity over chaos, substance over spectacle, and presence over perpetual distraction.
In a world engineered to overwhelm us, perhaps one of the most radical acts left is to pay attention and ask God for discernment so that we know and act upon what deserves our focus and what needs our prayers.
This column was initially published by CherryRoad Media. For more inspirational articles, follow ©Tiffany Kaye Chartier.
