Well kiddos, it’s been 2 weeks. Some of you may remember that I made the goal in THIS POST not to watch television or get on Facebook for 2 weeks and I would like to report that I have successfully done that for the past 2 weeks. Just wanted to blog about my experience. First of all, I learned some things about myself. Secondly, boy oh boy did I have so much more time for things. I didn’t realize just how much time I used to spend on the tube.
Probably the most significant accomplishment I noticed was that in just 2 weeks, without making any other changes to my daily routine besides cutting out television I was able to complete reading 2 ½ books. I will be doing a book review about 1 of them and possibly 2, in the near future, so stay tuned. It has been a long time since I have devoured a book that quickly, so it was a nice reminder to see just how much I can accomplish in just a few short days of reading before bed.
Second thing I noticed was how much more sleep I got. I am a total tube watcher before bed. In fact probably 85% of my TV watching happens when I am laying in bed getting ready to sleep. I will typically watch an episode or 2 of my favorite show, which I TiVo. Since they are about 22 minutes a piece when I get don't fast forwarding through the commercials it gets really easy to say “I will just watch one more before I go to bed.” One more quickly can turn into 3 or 4 more and I am always fighting the fatigue to stay up and just finish the next one. This typically takes at least 1-2 hours of sleep away from me. So I totally noticed being more rested these past 2 weeks than I have been in a long time. I don't typically fight the fatigue when I read. I will put the book down and go to bed when I start getting tired. Not sure why I don't just do that with the television, but I don't. Maybe that is something I can work towards in the future.
I also noticed something about my television temptation. If it is off, I am practically NEVER tempted to turn it on. Especially when I had a goal not to. However once it is on, it is SO hard for me to turn it off. I will just get into a show that I have to finish. And then once that show is finished the next show comes on and immediately I am drawn in for another 30 minutes to an hour. Not having the television on was like out of sight out of mind. I didn’t care what was on because I didn’t know what was on.
I seriously loved not watching television for 2 weeks. I have decided to make another goal for the upcoming weeks but I am not sure what yet. I think it’s going to be weekends only, because then it’s not a ‘school night’ that I am staying up late on. I have not decided exactly what my future television goal will be, but I am excited not to watch it as much as I did.
On to Facebook. First of all, I will say that this was a much bigger temptation for me but only at times that I was bored. There were several times in the past 2 weeks that I was bored standing in line at the post office and would have liked to check it out, or waiting for my sister to be ready to go somewhere and wanted to just take a quick glance. The problem I have had in the past is that those little glances happen probably 10 times a day. That is when Facebook gets tedious. I see the same status updates over and over and over and yet I keep looking. It was refreshing not to be looking 10 times a day at the same updates.
I used to have a little FB icon on my phone that I would just tap whenever I was bored. I deleted it for these 2 weeks and I now plan to keep it off. It has been nice finding something else to do in those moments when I was bored. I am also going to keep some kind of goal up for Facebook. Maybe only checking it once or twice a week on designated days. It was refreshing not to be under its spell for 2 weeks. Oh, and you know what else was nice… I usually always narrate my life to myself through FB status updates. I don't know if the rest of you ever do this but I always think about my life in status updates. Thankfully I only post about 10% of what I actually think to post, but this week I knew I wouldn’t be posting anything so I quit thinking as much in status updates. Plus I realized that while those little events may be somewhat interesting to me, they really are stupid tidbits into my life that no one should even care about. And I feel the same way about most of your updates too guys. They are stupid details about your daily lives that I just don't care about. I guess more than anything I realized just how much of a STUPID black hole FB is and I successfully and refreshingly pulled myself away from it for 2 whole weeks. Something I plan to continue to pull myself away from in the future. I will never use FB in the same way as I used to.
One of the final things I have decided on due to my experience the past 2 weeks is that Netflix is going bye bye. I am cancelling my Netflix membership. That is another black hole, where if you request 1 film, 8 others pop up and you get to decide if you want to watch those too. I have requested many films for one reason or another that ended up being the dumbest movies of all time, and I totally wasted the time I spent watching them. I am frankly tired of watching dumb movies because Netflix recommended them. The other thing that bothers me is that I won't be in the mood to watch a movie, or I will be too busy or too tired to watch a movie but because the film came in the mail I feel obligated to watch it and return it so I can get as many movies watched each month to get the most out of my membership fee. Dumb I know. It's just not worth having that obligation. I don't want to feel obligated to watch another Netflix movie! So now it’s Sayonara Netflix. Netflix is a very cool service, I will not deny. Whomever invented it is brilliant, especially the instant streaming. I admittedly will probably get it again at some point, but for now I am going to read more as I rid myself of the black holes in our technological world.
Overall I had an amazing experience. It was not nearly as difficult as I imagined and I would recommend it to anyone and everyone.
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