Driving around in my car listening to sports radio, I get a steady stream of updates on the NFL lock-out situation. As soon they start talking about it, I change the station. Same goes for TV updates on this. Mention this lock-out and I'm out.

And yet for the past four months the sports media continues to update me every day. Bad for their ratings, I believe. Boring beyond belief. Argumentative, politics, bureaucratic, legalistic, slow-moving, greedy, manipulative, posturing, phony. Get me out of here.

I am not one of those hard-core NFL fans who will lose sleep if the NFL season gets suspended. Good, I say, they'll all lose money and realize that the world can live without them. They'll start to panic that their millions and billions of dollars are dwindling away. Welcome to the real world of real people where money is harder to come by.

Cancel the season. Then maybe I'll tune in to hear all the stories about how these people can't afford to buy as many mansions and flashy cars. I know the NFL's popularity among American fans has soared into the skies in recent years. But frankly, I think we're too caught up in it. Do you realize how many more really good books people might read if they had more time on Sundays because the NFL was not on? Do you realize that in your local library are shelves filled with intriguing ideas that would enrich your life, make you think on a deeper level, maybe understand yourself and your significant others better and therefore enable you to improve your life?

I'm not saying these past few years I've been going to the library and reading books instead of watching NFL games. The truth is I've been like the rest of the nation's fans, tuning in fairly regularly. But if you really think about it, what does it matter who wins the Super Bowl? Does it really affect your life? Why spend so much emotional energy rooting for a team to win for whom you have no real affiliation? I'm as big a sports fan as the next guy. But isn't it time to put the NFL in its place, which is as a once in a while diversion from our daily lives rather than a Sunday hours upon hours ritual of sitting watching other people do things. Can you imagine how many more adult men would take up running or bike riding or going to the farmer's market with their wives or just talking to their wives? Maybe Dads will talk to their kids more, spend more time assisting them with homework.

Lock out, NFL. Stay locked out. Give us all a year or even more to focus on other things about life that we may find more fulfilling.