I began to notice Andrea’s mood. She was calm and even-mannered. She ate her meals at the table and went to bed reading the classics. She was a Zen Goddess! I asked her how I could get there. “Well,” she replied, taking a long deep inhalation and then lowering her gaze deep through me and with purpose. “Turn off the damn TV.” It was as if the heavens pressed open and the angels sang — as if I was being bathed in an angelic light of sorts. “Turn off the damn TV,” I repeated aloud and again and again as if in a trance.
That was over a month ago and I have to say that I have accomplished more for my life and business in that month than over entire seasons.
According to the National Institute on Media and the Family, children spend more time watching television than any other activity except sleeping. Almost one in five watch more than 35 hours of TV each week (Gentile & Walsh, 2002). In a national education study, students reported spending 4 times as many hours each week watching television as doing homework (Office of Educational Research and Improvement, 1990).
Children who are heavy TV viewers (over 3 hours per day), show the greatest decline in reading ability (Reinking & Wu, 1990). Another study found that a television on in the background interferes with the retention of skills and information during homework time (Armstrong, 1991).
In his article, Is your television viewing killing you slowly? Reclaim your life from the TV set (Nov. 10, 2003), Dr. Jason Eberhart-Phillips, Director, Chronic Disease Control, Alaska Division of Public Health, states that, “On average, American adults now watch more than four hours of television per day.
That's four hours wasted every day, four hours squandered on gaping into the vapid, make-believe world of the little screen.
That's four hours not spent talking with loved ones, helping kids with homework, volunteering in one's community or doing any of the wonderful things that bring meaning to life. That's one-sixth of your time on earth.”
What can you do?
1. Stop surfing: look at the TV guide and give yourself a TV allowance of one — two hours per week. This will allow you to get your fix of the Law and Order franchise and still be productive.
2. Unplug the TV: I found this very helpful over the first few days — as my normal habit was to tell myself the lie that I was just “tuning on New York 1 to see what the weather is — the reality is that New York 1 has a phenomenal website and the time and temperature is easily visible in the upper left hand corner. Basically, if you unplug the T.V. you are forced to think twice before watching.
3. Start reading: or writing or cooking or working out or any number of industrious things, the kind of things that you have been “putting on the back burner”; the things that you have wanted to do for years but procrastinate in favor of Judge Judy. You can use the new found money you save on cable to rent a car and go fishing with the guys or take your girl to a bed and breakfast.
Your life is waiting for you! Go get it! Sure, I have sat at a T.V. over these past couple of weeks but it has been to watch a DVD. A good idea is to log on to http://www.afi.com/tvevents/100years/movies.aspx and start renting the AFI 100 greatest American movies of all time films like Casablanca, Citizen Kane, Lawrence of Arabia or Chinatown, to name a few. You could make it a weekly social event, have your buddies over for a potluck movie night — or a movie night beer tasting where everyone brings a different beer and gets hammered. You get the idea. The bottom line: “Turn off the damn TV!”
If I can do it, anyone can. I have not partaken in any mindless surfing in over a month and I feel at peace, still, calm. I feel, well, Zen.
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