So today, I want to talk about media. Now I know this is a broad topic so I'm going to narrow it down as best as I can. As someone who watches TV a lot, this may be hard to do so bear with me.
It is no secret to many of my close friends that I have an almost addictive relationship with TV. I watch a total of sixty five plus TV shows, fall and summer combined, and that's not even including Netflix. Boy, do I love TV. With 65 shows at approximately one hour each I am spending 65 hours out of 168 hours a week watching TV. That is just under half of my week spent on television.
So, this begs the question: Is watching TV healthy or damaging to my lifestyle? The selfish side of me wants to answer totally healthy but my brain knows better. So many times I have heard how corruptible TV can be and yet I have always done little to change my viewing habits. TV can slowly rot a brain if you let it. Television is such an easy way to relax the mind, but if we are not careful it can "dumb down" your brain. Also, what am I watching and putting into my mind by doing such? It is important that we be careful what we put into our mind and that we think about what we think about. Yes, you heard me right. We need to be careful about what we think about. Philippians 4:8 tells us, "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things"
How hard is that to put into practice, especially in this case? You can say all you want to about it not affecting you but when push comes to shove what you watch on TV seeps into your thought life whether you want it to or not. In my case, no matter how much I try to tell myself that the hot guy on the TV has no affect on me physically or mentally, I am lying to myself. The more I watch the worse it gets and the more desensitized I become. I mean I just finished watching a whole eight seasons of Bones on Netflix in less than two months only to begin Sons of Anarchy right after. I have always watched television. I grew up in a household where we had a TV in almost every room. The only time my mom did not let us watch something was when it was rated R or on HBO or some similar channel. We grew up with the motto, "Well as long as you don't do or say anything you see on TV then it's fine if you watch it." I will say that even though I do not cuss, have premarital sex, or drink I do watch television shows that do these things. So, the question is: Is that wrong? For me the answer is possibly. All I know is that I am aware that I personally may have a problem that stems from watching TV and I need to do something about it. I am out of the denial stage. The next step is to take action. I have done so in small part. I used to watch this show called True Blood which most of you are probably aware of and if you aren't then good for you. Even though I fast forwarded through the bad parts, I finally realized that what I was watching and putting into my mind was not healthy for me and most importantly was not Godly and I stopped watching it.
So what needs to be done to curb my addiction? A whole lot of discipline my friend and man is that some tough medicine to swallow. Discipline is the hardest skill to master in my experience whether with TV or what kind of food I put into my body. So, I plan to start out slow. As a testament and promise right here on the internet, I vow to cut out at least two more shows (I know that seems like so little compared to 65 but one step at a time guys) and to only watch my shows once I have finished all of my work for the day. This is an extremely difficult challenge for me and it isn't one I haven't tried before but hopefully this time there will be better results. I also hope this has encouraged you to weed out some bad habit whether with TV, or eating, exercising, etc.
