SOLD OUT

Hi, my name’s Beth & I’m a tv addict. Well I was…for years. I now just choose to watch very little tv.

What’s your time wasting ‘poison’?

TV has a lot going for it, but I was watching EVERYTHING. I’d been in a tv watching cycle for years.

At Uni I took English Literature & only had 6 hours of lectures a week & in between those 6 hours-I watched TV. I read a little, of course, but mainly I watched TV.

After I graduated, I got a job working at the great worker’s co-op-Unicorn Grocery & I would then come home & the first thing I would do when I got in was…Yes, you guessed it – turn the TV on.

4 years ago now, my then boyfriend, now husband was shocked at how much time I could just while away gawping at the box. At the time I worked shifts running a cafe & would sometimes finish work at 2pm, come home, stick the tv on & stare at the box.

You get the picture. I wasn’t even a happy tv watcher-I’d get annoyed at the tv, exasperated at the shit programmes.  I would then get frustrated with myself, at bedtime, that I hadn’t done anything else with my day.

The next day I’d go to work, come back & watch it all over again!

Alan, my husband, gained a different perspective on the tv ‘thing’.   The year that we started our business we were both working other jobs, while we built up Dig our box scheme. He was working as a delivery driver & he noticed the same thing week in week out. At the houses he delivered to, when he walked past their living room windows he could see the occupants just sat staring at the corner of the room at the tv. He said that he had an eerie feeling when watching  someone watching tv – he said they looked hypnotised. This really unnerved him, then he came home to me doing the same thing-like the film- Invasion of the Body Snatchers!!

He then broached the subject with me of getting rid of the tv. “So, when are we going to be a tv free household?”

Me: “Erm…(talking about airy fairy-hypothetical future dreamland) Well, I’ve always felt that in my life there will reach a time when we don’t have a tv in the house.”

Him: “So, what is it about not having a tv that appeals to you?”

Me: “Well, I feel like I’m wasting my life staring at that thing…”

Him: “Ahaaa!! So if you feel like that now, why don’t we get rid of it now?”

Me: “Eeeer…because I like watching the tv…& I’m scared of the space it will leave…that I will have to fill!”

Him: “We can watch films on the computer, we can watch things we really want to watch. How about that?”

Me: “OK…Let me think about it.” (I turn back to the tv…2 mins passes)

Him: “So, when shall we get rid of it? ”

Me: “Oh I dunno, soon.”

Him: “How about tomorrow?”

Me: (HEEEEEEEEEELP-airy fairy-hypothetical future dreamland-become COLD LIGHT OF DAY!) “Oh F*@# it, OK let’s do it!”

So, we did, the next day.We put it on Freecycle & it was gone by the end of the day.

I immediately felt lighter & relieved. Yes, relieved.

Now, to be really clear about this-I’m not smug about this. I now waste plenty of time of the internet, just not as much as I did watching tv. I just wanted to share with you that there may be some very ‘normal’ everyday habits that are sucking up your time & wasting it before your very ‘square eyes’.

What’s your addictive time wasting poison, that feels good for a while, then leaves you feeling empty?

What could you do with that time instead?