A Month Without TV or Video

‘I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.’ ~Groucho Marx By Leo Babauta Of all the challenges I’ve done for The Year of Living Without, going without TV/video has been the one with the most mixed feelings for me. One side of me: I all of a sudden had more free time, to read, write, do whatever I wanted without distraction. I enjoyed being free of TV and movies. But the other side: I couldn’t hang out with my family when they watched TV. Which they tend to want to do every night, for an hour or two. I honestly didn’t want to watch the TV shows with them (we don’t have cable, but watch shows we pick on iTunes), but when they watched, I was isolated. This wasn’t always great. I could have asked them to not watch TV, to join me, and some nights I did. I enjoyed those nights. We would hang out and talk, instead of staring at moving images. But I didn’t want to force them to go without something just because I wanted to experiment with it myself, so I tried to allow them to watch, most of the time. So I would go to my room and read. And so the results are mixed. Here are my findings after a month of no TV and video: Well, in the beginning, I forgot to not watch online video, and so I slipped up once and watched this video on how the iPhone is isolating us. I’m glad I watched it, but when I realized I’d already violated my challenge, only a d...
Source: Zen Habits - Category: Life Coaches Authors: Tags: Finance & Family Habits Happiness Source Type: blogs