Oh man, I love TV. Even though I know how bad it is, I still love to watch it. And yet, despite my love of television, there are periods in my life where I go days at a time without watching even a single minute of my life. It just so happens that those are the best days of my life. Coincidence? I think not. I have definitely noticed a correlation between good days and not watching television, so I’m going to dig deeper into those TV-free days to expose the truth about how to stop watching TV and start enjoying life.
The TV-Free Days
If I look back on all the television-free days in my life, I notice one commonality: my real life on those days was better than any fictional televised life. I was out and about, hanging with friends, knocking things off my bucket list, doing work that was meaningful to me, eating amazing food, and doing a bevy of other really cool things. Living my own life was far superior to watching someone else’s life on TV. I didn’t need to watch TV because I was getting more entertainment from my own life than I could get from any TV character, reality star, or athlete. My life was the best TV show and it was on 24/7/365.
However, my life isn’t always so spectacular. There are days where I watch hour upon hour of TV. Instead of letting the new episodes pile up on Hulu, I consume them at a voracious pace and impatiently await the next episode, the way a drug addict awaits the next hit. On these days, my own life is so boring, that I need to escape. I need to immerse myself in a world of fictionalized characters, whose lives are far more entertaining than my own. These TV-filled days are among the worst days of my life. If only there was a way to minimize these days and maximize TV-free days.
Creating a Television-Worthy Life
You want your life to be so entertaining, that you don’t need TV. How do you do that? Here are a few tips, based on an analysis of my own TV-free days and discovering the major characteristics of these days.
1. Be busy.
When you are busy, there is no time for TV. It’s as easy as that. Of course, you want to be busy with meaningful things. If you are busy because of a job you hate or a time-consuming relationship you need to end, then you will simply go home afterwards and numb yourself with TV. But if you are building your business, spending hours playing with your kids, or driving from one place to the next to plan a big party, then your life will be full of amazing experiences and you won’t need to numb yourself. So stay busy, but only with the right things.
2. Be social.
My good friend Jeff said to me on multiple occasions that the TV was his friend. It talked to him and told him cool stories. While he was joking (I hope), many people—including myself—almost feel like the TV characters are their friends. We turn to television when we have no one else to hang out with. The characters comprise our social circles and watching their shows is like hanging out with them.
If we want to go TV-free, then we need high-quality, super-fun friends to replace these characters. And when we hang out with them, we need to do cool things. We need to go to comedy clubs, throw parties, go hiking, take trips together, and just do a lot of awesome things together. Our adventures with our friends should be better than any adventure our favorite TV characters get into.
3. Be interesting.
Learn a language. Start a cool hobby like juggling, knife throwing, or napkin folding (one of my favorites). Tinker with electronics. Build websites. Teach classes. Watch live shows and plays. Read the greatest books ever written. Write.
Just be interesting.
How many times have we watched a TV character and thought to ourselves, “I wish I could do that; I wish I was like that.”? Well here’s the simple truth:
Anything a TV character can do, you can do better.
Your favorite TV character is bilingual? Become trilingual.
Your favorite TV character is the life of every party? Develop your social skills to the point where you could even outshine the TV character, were he real.
Your favorite character travels the world 3 months every year? Travel the world 4 months every year.
All of this is possible, and more. The first step to living a TV-worthy life is to stop watching TV. If you can do that, my friend, you will be light years ahead of the pack.