Live Your Life

I can’t stop myself. I have to get on the subject of television. How much is your family watching? The more television you watch the more advertisers will convince you, you can’t live without it. Now it isn’t enough to have a television in every room of the house. We have to have one in the car too. I’ve even seen people watching TV in their garages as I drive by. Don’t these people ever want to have their own thoughts? Why are we so worried about "missing" something on TV but we don't care what we're missing in our lives?

I used to think it was rude when adults tuned out children. Now that I have my own I realize why. If I listened and responded to everything my kids said to me I would never have a moment to listen to my own thoughts. If you sit the whole family down in front of the TV every night then no one needs to ever have their own thoughts. Advertisers can do all your thinking for you.

Here are some facts about television viewing in America. Please read them. I hope they will educate you into turning off the television in your home. I don’t mean for the day or the week. I mean for the rest of your life. Start living your own real life instead of watching other people living their pretend ones.

Do you say you want to get more organized yet you spend hours every evening watching TV? I read a great idea once for getting organized. It said you can accomplish so much by getting up off the couch during commercials to clean. You will have spent about 15 minutes cleaning for every hour of TV watching. Wow! I have a better idea. Turn the TV off and accomplish an hours worth of cleaning for every hour you would have spent in front of the TV. How’s that for a revolutionary organizing idea!

We do occasionally watch movies in our home but we do not watch one minute of TV. How are watching movies different than watching TV? They don't create a habitual need to watch and they don’t have commercials. One year when my son was little everyone kept asking him what he wanted for Christmas. He would just stare at them with a confused look. Finally we re-explained (he couldn’t remember the previous Christmas) that people gave each other presents for Christmas. The next time someone asked him what he wanted he thought really hard and then he replied, “I think…something purple.” He had no idea! He didn’t know there were thousands of different kinds of toys on the shelves at stores. It never occurred to him to make a list a mile long of things he wanted. He figured he had everything he wanted. No one was telling him otherwise. He didn’t watch TV.

That has all changed now that he’s older. He’s watched TV at the gym and at friend’s and family’s homes. Now when we go to the store I hear a constant chatter of, “Buy me this, buy me that. I want this, I want that.” But I’m on the hunt for frog eye noodles so I tune him out.