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I have made the painful decision to break up with my TV.
While I would like to think I am not a television addict, the truth is, that big hunk of circuitry has me trained like a 4 year old trains a bad parent. You now the kids I am talking about. They have reduced their parents to talking to them in the third person while dolling out important but ineffective life lessons like, “You know mommy doesn’t like it when you punch her in the face!”
The reality is television has the majority of the population trained to the point where it has become our default mechanism. We turn it on in the morning while we down our morning java. It is on the moment we get home and for many, it’s the last thing we see before we fall asleep.
Sadly, TV now garners way more attention than any of our loved ones. When is the last time you spent 2 hours focused solely on your spouse, your kids or a close friend?
Television has become our great escape from life, which is ironic because we log so many hours on it, it prevents us from actually having a real life. The fact of the matter is we think we need TV far more than we actually do.
Part of the problem results from the mere fact we have been weaned on television from the time we were embryonic freeloaders, first listening and then later watching everything from Sesame Street to Dexter.
But most of what we watch does little to enhance our lives. If it did, I think we would all have it listed prominently on our resumes, although I am not sure what section it might fall under. Perhaps it could fall under volunteer work, say for the Sony Corporation, in there, I don’t know, Entertainment Division?
I finally decided that if I really wanted to squeeze more out of life, I needed to squeeze more out of my day. It wasn’t rocket science to figure out the TV needed to go. And while I struggled with the decision of whether or not I should/could/would, once I did I discovered the most amazing side-effects.
10 Reasons to End your relationship with your TV…
Warning: Side-effects are imminent but don’t include weight gain, itching, nausea, bloating or diarrhoea.
1. Finally put high school physics to use
Not to get all Stephen Hawking on you, but quantum theory suggests that no volume of space can be perfectly empty. My point? When you quit watching television you clear a vacuum of time and space to be filled.
Think of it like a farmer’s field that has been recently cleared. That space will be filled one way or the other; either with weeds or with a deliberate crop of the farmers choosing. The same choice will exist for you. Your goal is to deliberately fill your newly cleared space with activities that enrich your life experience and that of those around you.
2. Get quality zzzzzs.
Television keeps us up well past our natural waking hours. We somehow manage to make time to watch the latest life train wreck on Jerry Springer even though our natural biological clocks would indicate we have long missed our bedtime.
One of the first things I noticed when I ditched my TV was the fact that I started to get tired around 9pm. Who knew? I can now regularly get to bed by 10pm; a feat I was never able to achieve in my pre-television era.
3. Buff up your relationships.
The very act of not watching TV requires you to now interact with your surroundings. You are automatically upgraded from Brain Dead TV Watching Pylon to Active Life Participant. The beneficiaries come to those around you as you begin to build and nurture relationships with things such as…wait for it…meaningful conversations that have nothing to do with fictitious characters.
4. Filter out the filth.
Negativity sells and that is exactly what most programs deliver. I am always amazed that some of the most popular shows revolve around death and violent crime.
How much of this do we really need to be exposed to? CSI, CSI Miami, CSI New York, CSI Los Angeles. It is just a matter of time before we are glued to the set watching episodes of CSI Reykjavik (capital of Iceland for those of you who suffer from geography issues).
Pretty much most of what we watch reinforces all that is wrong with the world.We need to do a better job filtering out the negativity we are bombarded with and focus our efforts on building a life exclusively around the positive? Stop watching TV and see how your attitudes, language, interactions and overall demeanour changes as a result.
5. Get your “Shush!” on.
Silence is a wonderful thing. Noise from TV, automobiles, and other constant disturbances actually places tremendous physical stress on our bodies. At the end of a long stressful day at work, the last thing you need is more noise. Start incorporating a dose of silence to recharge your battery.
6. Solve the paradox that is you.
TV is the great escape from our minds. It diverts us from really having to deal with who we have become and the lovely emotional baggage we have accumulated. Most of us want to be doing so much more than what we currently offer the world, but we spend virtually no time trying to find out what that is and why we aren’t acting on it.
When you stop watching TV, you open up the opportunity to begin an incredible, albeit initially uncomfortable journey to examine issues that have been banished to the remote regions of your grey matter.
7. Get the month of February for free.
We always say we don’t have enough time, but it is the only constant that levels the playing field for everyone on the planet (even aliens, but I doubt any are reading this). We all have 24 hours in our day.
How much we get out of them is determined by where we choose to focus our efforts. Giving up television could easily free up 2 hours a day minimum for most people. That’s an additional 14 hours a week, 56 hours a month and a whopping 672 hours per year. That actually equals 28 days. Put another way that gives you the whole month of February (excluding leap years) to do whatever you want. What could you accomplish in that time?
| Three tasks that could be done in that time… |
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*Please be warned that if you were to complete the last 0.5 leg of the trip you would actually finish on the moon when the 28 days are up. So it might be wise to let someone know where you are.
**Not sure how you get down. Do taxis run at that altitude?
8. Put the squeeze on those creative juices.
By virtue of the fact that you instinctively become more reflective, you conversely become more creative. Suddenly ideas of all genres start to flow simply by creating a space for them to congregate and hang out; think of it like creating your own little karaoke bar where your ideas get a chance to be heard and not have to be worried about somebody yelling out, “You suck!”
9. Fire up the production line.
The effects are cumulative. By creating a vacuum, you invite reflection, positivity, and creativity. As ideas start to flow, things start to happen and suddenly ideas that have lain dormant for years are dusted off, resuscitated and begin to take on exciting lives of their own.
Before you know it, your to do list is actually populated with meaningful productive tasks other than paying parking tickets and buying diapers (hopefully for a child and not for yourself).
10. Discover the lost and found (self-confidence) box.
The very act of not watching TV spawns an avalanche of positive effects that rush in to fill the void. Each works in harmony with the other to suddenly begin moving you forward on a path that has lived exclusively in that isolated part of your mind which houses wishful thinking.
As you begin to witness the physical manifestation of things you once deemed impossible, a restored belief of self is the automatic by-product. This has a momentous carry-over effect that begins a journey that never seemed attainable.
QuitTwit…
Quit watching TV. It’s a break up worth pursuing and one that literally won’t keep you up at night.
To spreading ideas worth quitting,
