Watch TV guilt free

It’s amazing how easily certain opinions can become so mainstream that they seem as if they are fact. People seem to take it as a fact that watching TV is a “mind numbing waste of time” even though they themselves do it anyway. Writers make silly calculations about how much time people “waste” watching TV each year and say something like, “if only you were to use that time doing something productive your life would be much better off”. They make you feel guilty for the “countless hours you spend in front of the tube”.

Fine, even the critics would agree that watching some educational documentary is fine, but that’s not what most people watch. I’m talking about your favorite sitcom for example. Ironically, it is conventional wisdom that laughter is incredibly important. It’s referred to as the “best medicine”. If I’m watching something funny on TV, I often laugh out loud. I leave the couch feeling great after watching a good comedy. The best episodes of the Simpson’s and Seinfeld for example are hilarious. Of course spending hours on end flipping through the channels when there is “nothing on” is a waste of time. It’s also possible to spend too much time watching even good TV, much the same way as its possible to spend too much time doing anything. Work, eat, sleep, and exercise are all things that many people do in excess.

Of course I’m not saying that you need to watch TV or even should, but if you get a kick out of your favorite shows, watch them on your free time and don’t even feel a little guilty about it. Don’t kid yourself. It’s fun. Even reruns are ok sometimes, as long as they are still really making you laugh. You’ll know if you are overdoing it.

With that said, make sure you are getting out of the house enough and having fun in actual social situations. It is obviously unhealthy to become too dependent on TV. I’m just saying that if you genuinely like watching TV, the next time you come across an article about how you are wasting your time watching TV, just think about how much time you are wasting reading an article like that. It will give you guilt, teach you nothing, and “numb your mind”.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 9th, 2007 at 2:38 am and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.