The Information Diet: Shrink your Bush

I’ve been on a lot of diets in my life, but my favorite one of all by far is the information diet. It has earned me a shower of accolades from my closest friends, who use words like “smug” and “self-important” and “douche.”

They’re probably right on all counts, but I’m never coming off the information diet. I’m a big believer in Stephen R. Covey‘s idea of the Circle of Influence/Circle of Concern, which is basically a smug way of saying that being concerned about things that one can’t influence makes one frustrated.

Here’s the circle of concern, which represents all the things in your life that you’re concerned about, good or bad. Politics, kitty cats, the economy, Bieber, wars, naked boobies, filing your 2010 taxes, your old Cheryl’s new boyfriend (megadouche), your family… everything you care about goes in here.

As you can see, this is all represented by George Bush’s “concerned face” in high-contrast black and white for extra drama:

Inside the Circle of Concern is your Circle of Influence, which represents the things that you have the power to change. Influence is represented here by female bodybuilder Yolanda Hughes:

Covey’s point is that the difference in size between your circle of concern and your circle of influence is where frustration and feelings of helplessness are born. If you want to minimize those feelings, you can either grow your Yolanda, or shrink your Bush, or, ideally, do both.

Shrink your Bush

It’s much easier to grow or shrink your Bush than your Yolanda, although everyone is hopefully growing their Yolanda at all times through self improvement, or what have you. I choose to shrink my Bush as much as possible by only hearing about things that happen in my immediate vicinity, which makes them likely to fall within the range of my Yolanda.

I hope that makes sense.

Of course, there are side effects of shrinking my Bush, as I mentioned above. According to some people, I have a third circle that encompasses this whole attitude: