3 Weeks of No T.V.

I know you've probably seen several YouTube videos of people going on TV cleanses and talked to people that have experimented with that sort of thing, but read along here to see a new perspective. My experience was a journey of self-discovery and it when it wasn't perfect, I was surprisingly ok with that.

Oct 17, 2020

Today wasn't 'no TV' so lets call this the preface to this personal 'cleanse' of mine. I remember when I was in college, I'd logoff from social media to focus on school work more. One of my friends said "why don't you just not get on it and get on it when you don't have schoolwork?" But for me, any type of "habit" has always been either all in or all out. So, most recently, when I watched "Criminal: UK" on Netflix, I seamlessly rolled right into "Criminal: Spain". For days, my blog could wait, my photography could wait - I was captivated. Which is an amazing thing, but for me the balance is the struggle. So 2 days ago, I removed my Smart Roku TV from my desk and today, I removed the only television streaming app on my phone - Hulu. I got rid of my vices that were at my finger tips.

However, I literally just came from visiting my sister in law, where a few of us gathered around and watched Antebellum. So tomorrow is the clean start...

October 19, 2020

Yesterday I totally cracked. For me, breakfast means eggs, hash-browns, toast, and TV. Actually, that's any meal of the day for me. If I'm eating, I must be entertained at the same time. I said to myself, just one episode of KUWTK. Long story short, it turned into 3.

I had a guest over later on, and what's a part of entertaining a guest? TV. We watched maybe 2 episodes of whatever then sort of lost interest and decided to switch to music.

October 26, 2020

I totally feel guilty writing 9 days later. Me actually reporting and writing a post is usually a sure sign that I am abiding by my cleanse and not watching TV. Therefore, the past several days, I didn't write because when I wasn't busy adulting, I was... confession... watching TV.

Today, my black desk is cleared once again of my RokuTV and in it's place is my laptop which I'm now typing on. I'm writing because I immediately feel my mind become more free of space when I'm not consuming shows and movies. I feel the need to reflect and create more and it's not that those things weren't previously there. They're always there but you can't hear them when you're hearing other noises and you can't see them through the fog of so many other distractions.

October 28, 2020

I own exactly 10 DVDs. I find DVDs to be much better than streaming sites. The experience is always better for me. For some psychological reason that I can't quite figure out, I hone in much more with DVDs. Its like picking up a physical DVD case, turning it over, appreciating the cover art and photography, skimming the actors' names, then manually clicking "Play" once the CD is in just makes it all so much more enjoyable.

I also think we treat discs with more appreciation because we may have 10-100 to choose from whereas Netflix and Hulu has thousands of options. Anyway, all that to say, I picked up one of my DVDs last night and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was the movie Ali - depicted by Will Smith and it was literally wonderful.

Tonight, I worked till 7 pm and right now, all I wanna do is watch a movie. But I'm fighting the urge by watching old YouTube videos and maybe reading...

November 7, 2020

This has become a learning experience for me and I didn't expect it to in the way that it has. For one, I've learned that things really do take time. Which sounds majorly cliche but it's different when you're able to experience a life lesson first hand. I felt so defeated when I first started to 'quit TV', it felt like I'd continue giving in forever. Then just after a week or so it became more doable and I felt more at peace with the frustration of trying to go cold turkey on something.

I found balance. At the current moment, I mostly just watch TV when my friends are over. Because that is the only way we entertain ourselves when we are indoors. On nights when I'm alone, half the time I get shit done being productive and half the time I blow off some steam by watching a show. I'm not mad at myself for that and inwards, I just feel so much better with still making progress.

Everything takes time...

Thanks for reading.

Photo by: @ha7.san (IG)