Turn Off the TV - Part 3

Part I
Part II


The Heart of the Matter


There are some people who can do things in moderation. To be honest, I've never been very good at that. Especially with bad habits. One of the few things I've discovered about myself is that I need to totally remove myself from a situation if I am to successfully change my habits in that situation.


So, yes, I did leave the television off for a while. Probably about a month, excepting for the occasional weekend movie that I would watch with Husband. One thing that helped is that it was late spring - everything was in reruns anyway, so I wasn't missing any must-see new episodes of anything. This allowed me some much-needed time to evaluate WHY I had the television on so much anyhow.


(In case you were wondering, after some massive playing & lots of distraction, we were able to help Bird 'forget' about the movies too. At least for this little while.)


When it came down to it, I had the television on as a way to connect with the outside world. I almost never watched videos/DVDs when it was just Bird & me at home, and I realized that it was because I felt like I had a link to real people if I had live televsion on. (And I do use the term 'live' loosely - mainly to mean stuff that was being broadcasted as I watched it!). If something happened in the world, I would know about it because the news affiliates would break in. If I removed that link to the outside world, I felt incredibly isolated.


The problem, however, lay in the fact there were not countless earthshattering news stories occuring, and instead I was feeding my head a steady diet of empty calories and vapid images.


I realized that I needed to take a more active role in what filled my brain, and made a conscious decision that I was either going to watch something, or that the tv would simply be turned off.

Tomorrow, I'll share where we are today.