be tv free

I am still a little bit tempted to turn on the TV during the day, but I haven’t been doing it. Soon I hopefully won’t even consider it.

Our cable was out for 3 days. Hubby hated it, I didn’t mind. The TV stayed off for the entire time and it was sheer bliss! Only once in the past 2 weeks have I turned the TV on during the daytime. It is so much better to have the quiet.

we had 2 days completely free of TV. Baby steps…

Hubby agreed that TV usage is an issue worth dealing with. Yay! We’ve agreed to try en experiment where we become intentional about what we watch. We are going to look ahead at the schedule for the week and commit to what we want to watch. At least this should eliminate the amount of time the TV is on during the evening. Last night we turned it on at 8:30 so we could watch “How I Met Your Mother”. We turned it off at 9:00. That’s progress.

It meant a lot to me that Hubby was willing to acknowledge that TV is a barrier in our relationship. For the first time it wasn’t a conversation about whether to have a TV or not. Instead we worked to find a solution.

this means not turning the TV on during the day. Now that I am at home full-time, I find it difficult late afternoon when the laundry is done and I sit down for a break.

I got out of the habit of watching TV when I was married to a man who wouldn’t share the remote. So by the time I had choices again (after divorce), I’d stopped following everything and didn’t even know who most of the popular actors were. As my kids got older, we started to watch specific shows each week (such as House and Criminal Minds) and having a Dish DVR meant we could watch them on OUR schedule. But then money got tight and I cancelled Dish. I bought rabbit ears but it was a solid month until anyone asked me to put them on. Now all that watches it (on a little 9” screen) is the 9yo and only because she’s out of school for the summer and bored. Instead of TV, we read, do crafts, hang out outside, listen to music, and of course generous computer time.

Throw away your television
Time to make this clean decision
Master waits for its collision now
Its a repeat of a story told
Its a repeat and its getting old

Throw away your television
Make a break big intermission
Recreate your super vision now
Its a repeat of a story told
Its a repeat and its getting old

[chorus:]
Renegades with fancy gauges
Slay the plague for its contagious
Pull the plug and take the stages
Throw away your television now

Throw away your television
Take the noose off your ambition
Reinvent your intuition now
Its a repeat of a story told
Its a repeat and its getting old

[chorus]

Throw away your television
Salivate to repetition
Levitate this ill condition now
Its a repeat

Red Hot Chilli Peppers – Lyrics

I’ve done this off and on, and everytime I move into a place without a TV, I love it. It’s so much easier just to not have a TV where you live. I find that if there’s one in my place, I’ll watch it. If there isn’t, I don’t. It’s easier than giving up coffee or chocolate, or the internet. I think that would be very difficult. I guess no one who uses this site would want to do that.

I haven’t completely cut TV out of my life but I have greatly cut back. Whereas I once turned it on every night (ICK!), I now only turn it on on Tuesday nights to watch House (LOVE HIM!) and Law & Order: SVU. So, that is a start, right?

I few years ago I was contacted to be a Nielsen Family (despite the fact that I’m single, so I’m not really a “family”). Especially because it was the summer sweeps, I ended up very embarassed by all the crap on television that I would probably be watching that I’d have to enter into my “diary”. I ended up not watching any TV during that four week period.

I still have my TV and it still gets turned on very occasionally—usually because there is a news copter hovering nearby, so I get curious as to why (because I live in Southern California, it’s usually a car fire or some other problem on one of the two nearby freeways). Still, I never have my TV on for more than 15 minutes.

That doesn’t mean that’s the only television that I end up watching, however. Whenever I go to see my Dad, the TV is always on in the evening (sometimes even during dinner!). And whenever I go to the closest Mexican restaurant to me, there is always fútbol‘en español’, or telenovelas.

So here’s my advice: If you want to stop watching TV, or just cut down on the amount that you watch, keep a diary of all the crap that you are watching.

BlankVerse