Dump the remote
I read a great blog entry over at savingadvice.com, titled “How Dumping TV Allowed Me to Quit My Job, Create an Online Business and Fund My Retirement Account.” The author states that the best decision he made was to make a conscious decision to stop watching so much television and to devote that time towards productive work. He also has a number of suggestions for people trying to break the addiction to the television.
I had a similar revelation about five or so years ago. I lived alone in a tiny studio apartment in Lawrence, KS. I was two years into my first career job as a programmer for the state. My job wasn’t very challenging, and often during the day I’d think about all of the projects I wanted to do and programs I wanted to code if I could just find the time. Of course, I had the time, but I used it for writing and surfing the internet, watching television, and the other basic things that most guys in their early 20’s do. Weekend after weekend would end with me laying in bed on Sunday night thinking to myself, “Ok, why didn’t I do any of the things that I said I would?” I promised myself that I’d do something productive next week, and the cycle would continue.
Until one day when I finally broke myself out of the cycle. I didn’t break out by making another promise to instantly change all of the things that were wrong in my life. I just made one step forward. I unplugged my cable box, drove to the cable company, and told them shut off my television immediately.
Once the television was gone, it was easy for me to make something out of myself. I used my newly-found free time to teach myself how to code dynamic, database-driven websites from scratch. My mother was starting a newspaper of her own at the time, so I volunteered to design and write her website. I took the money that I had been spending on cable and purchased a laptop, which I used to code programs outside of the tiny apartment in which I spent way too much time. After six months of real, solid work I had finished my first homemade project, the “Website Newscaster,” which made building and maintaining an online newspaper easy. And some months after that, I used my newly-earned web programming skills to get a great job building professional websites.
The positives didn’t stop there. While I was using my time on my new project, I decided to start working on another problem: my health. I first made the decision that I would stop eating fast-food garbage, and I started to lose weight. I then tried jogging, and even more weight came off. By the time I had started my new job, I was 45 pounds lighter than I was sitting in my dungy Lawrence apartment. Which, by the way, I had replaced with a great downtown KC loft, then later a townhome with my fiancee, and in a few weeks from now a house with my wife. And all of these changes boosted my self-confidence, my temperament, my pride, and made looking at myself in the mirror a lot easier.
All of these improvements in my life were the result of a lot of good decisions and a lot of hard work, not just my decision to turn off the television. Returning my cable box was just the starting point. It was the point where I made the determination that I was going to make my life better and when I was ready to take real action towards that goal. There are many other first-steps people can take to make their lives better, but if the statictics in the article are correct television is probably the best place for most people to start.
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2 Responses to “Dump the remote”
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You know, this is something I’ve been considering, at least in part as a cost-cutting measure. It’s not like we can’t watch movies or good tv occasionally–we do have a dvd player. Do you own a tv at all at this point?
I’m actually not the tv watcher in the family–I can be pretty disciplined about watching a show or two and then turning it off. In general I find tv, especially during the day, so distracting and so…passive. I really don’t like my kids spending too much time in front of it although I will admit to turning it on when they’re (or I’m) sick. They watch more than they should, but way less than many.
Congrats on your decision–you may be our inspiration to do the same!
Ahh, for some reason the post I thought I made didn’t get posted. I shouldn’t have tried to post the comment through email. Thank you for the comment.
But yes, I have to be honest, I have a television (and just bought a big one) and I watch television more regularly now, but only because now I can now afford to spend more of my time on relaxation and hobbies (like blogging). Back then I really needed to get a new job, a new place, and generally put myself in a better situation. But now I have a great job, a new house, and a perfect wife, so I’m comfortable enough to take some nights off now.