Ever think...I need more time in my day? I wish I had more time to________. You fill in the blank. I have found one REALLY great way to have more time in my day. No I'm not Bewitched. I can't turn back the clock or add more hours to the day. Two years ago I made a decision to make some changes in my life and one of the changes I made was to turn off the TV. I didn't watch any television at all. COLD TURKEY!! I started reading instead. I read a lot of books!! Then my husband started to lose interest in television; maybe because there was no one to sit with and just veg. After about 5 months we disconnected the satellite because why pay for something you don't use. We started talking, doing things, and relating to each other. I will tell you it was weird the first month or so because we were the people who automatically walked into the house and turned on the TV whether we were home alone or together. Slowly but surely we started doing other things with our time. I read some great books on organizing and started cleaning out small areas of the house and getting rid of stuff we hadn't used for years. Cleaned our closets. Painted. We both joined Bible study groups. I started meeting once a month with some friends for a crafting group. We have joined organizations that we have interests in and in short we have started living our lives. It is amazing what can be accomplished when you are not sitting in front of a TV every night and most of the weekend. I used to watch so much reality TV and I was sucked in...what's happening with The Little People, Kardashians, Teen Mom, Kendra, Who's on Dancing with the Stars, you name it we watched it and our friends know we are HUGE NASCAR fans and there was not one NASCAR show on that we didn't watch! Guess what? There is nothing on Television that is worth the time we have now! NOTHING!! I started to wonder how much time does the average American spend watching television every day? I did a little research and found out it is 5.11 hours per DAY! But I found out some more interesting facts: 99% of American households own at least one television (we have 6), The average child spends 1,480 minutes per week watching television, the average youth spends 900 hours per year in school but 1,200 hours watching television. The statistic that REALLY scared me was when they asked 4 -6 year olds to choose between watching television and spending time with their dad 54% of them said they would rather watch television than spend time with their dad. That is not only scary to me but very sad! If you are thinking or complaining that you don't have enough time in the day to do what you need to do or you can't relate to your friends and family the way you would like to, I challenge you to turn off the TV for a month and see what happens. You might be pleasantly surprised. I will tell you that I have no idea what the Kardashians are up to now and quite frankly I don't care because my life is so wonderful that it doesn't matter to me at all!! I wouldn't trade the relationships I have for anything. Think about the meaningful conversations you could have with your children, spouse, and friends.
God Bless,
Nena
#getoffthescale #television #time #makemoretime #freedom #coldturkey #stopwatchingtelevision
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