{"id":1547,"date":"2013-03-18T06:00:24","date_gmt":"2013-03-18T13:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/morningnewsinverse.com\/?p=1547"},"modified":"2013-03-18T06:07:44","modified_gmt":"2013-03-18T13:07:44","slug":"1547","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/?p=1547","title":{"rendered":"LIVING IN THE AGE OF “TMI”"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\"Let<\/a>By Suzanne Sparrow Watson<\/p>\n

This year marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of a wonderful little book, \u201cAll I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten\u201d, by Reverend Robert Fulghum.\u00a0 For those of you too young \u2013 or too old \u2013 to remember, it included an essay proposing that the basic rules we learn as children teach us everything we need to get along as adults. \u00a0 It contains a list of 16 suggestions for a better life, ostensibly gleaned from the copious notes \u00a0\u00a0Fulghum took while still in elementary school.<\/p>\n

I re-read his essay the other day and had to admit that there were some real gems on the list:\u00a0 play fair, clean up your own mess, and a current favorite of mine \u00a0\u2013 take a nap every afternoon.\u00a0 All in all, I think his essay has held up pretty well after 25 years.\u00a0 With one notable exception.\u00a0 \u00a0Reverend Fulghum\u2019s #1 piece of advice was \u201cShare Everything\u201d.<\/p>\n

It would appear that this particular tidbit has been taken a bit too literally. \u00a0At some point between 1988 and now, it has become fashionable to SHARE EVERYTHING. \u00a0Been in a public place lately? \u00a0I’m betting that people on cell phones have “shared” lots of information with you. \u00a0I\u2019ve heard conversations about cheating husbands, women who neglect their children, steamy dating details and so many medical updates I could write for Web MD. \u00a0Put a cell phone in someone’s hands in the public square and suddenly no detail is too intimate to share with the world.<\/p>\n

Facebook is so enamored with the notion of sharing that it has a \u201cShare\u201d button, which makes it easy to delight our friends and family with an up-to-the-minute status of our activities.\u00a0 Personally, I love seeing pictures of my friends and \"Facebook<\/a>their kids and animals.\u00a0 I even enjoy vacation pictures.\u00a0 But like everything else, some people have taken it to excess.\u00a0 I\u2019ve read about colonoscopies, induced labor and ear wax.\u00a0 One particular bugaboo of mine is people who take pictures of their dinner plate at a restaurant and immediately post it on Facebook.\u00a0 Frankly, I could care less that some chi-chi chef has curled radicchio around a terrine of goat\u2019s liver.\u00a0 I don\u2019t even care about seeing a triple bacon cheeseburger, although that\u2019s more to my liking.\u00a0 Here\u2019s my take \u2013 if I wanted to see food on a plate I\u2019d subscribe to Gourmet <\/i>magazine.<\/p>\n

But the most flagrant offender of over-sharing \u00a0is Al Roker.\u00a0 He recently released a book outlining his journey through gastric bypass surgery.\u00a0 \u00a0I have nothing against Mr. Roker or even gastric bypass, for that matter.\u00a0 But in the course of an interview Mr. Roker cited a passage from his book about the White House dinner he attended shortly after his operation.\u00a0 He then proceeded to tell the interviewer that \u2013 well, I won\u2019t go into detail here but suffice it to say that he soiled his pants.<\/p>\n

Talk about TMI! \u00a0Why in the hell<\/em> would someone go on national TV and admit that?\u00a0 I can tell you one thing based on personal experience:\u00a0 you will never look at Al Roker in quite the same way again.<\/p>\n

But back to Reverend Fulghum\u2019s book.\u00a0 The \u201cshare everything\u201d bit notwithstanding, I do think there is a lot of common sense in his list and God knows that is something that is in short supply these days.\u00a0 So in the interest of sharing and promoting common sense, \u00a0here is his list:<\/p>\n