I often find myself wondering what the renaissance would have been like if tv had existed back then.  Would Michelangelo have completed the Statue of David and the Sistine Chapel?  Would Shakespeare have written Hamlet, MacBeth, and Romeo & Juliet?  Would Leonardo da Vinci have been such a monumental historical figure?  I can’t imagine there would have been such a rich contribution to culture had The Jersey Shore and Desperate Housewives entranced everyone like it does today.

I banished television from my homestead a few years ago.  It has made it’s way back in and out from time to time, in certain forms, but more recently I’ve completely rid myself of cable, antenna or dish programming.  I renounced television once and for all.  I decided I was wasting valuable time watching people on tv do ridiculous or enviable things when I should be out living my life, and doing ridiculous and enviable things!

I noticed that not only did I feel more productive, but I had much less of an urge to buy useless crap for which I had no real need.  Imagine that.

When you spend too much time watching tv, you are quite literally wasting your life.  Think about that for a moment.  How much has tv actually enriched your life?  Outside of the odd joke you heard that got all your friends laughing, what value has it added to your life?

Here’s another way to look at it:  How many hours of tv do you watch a week?  I know people who watch 1-2 hours a day.

Let’s say you watch 2 hours a day.  Let’s break it down:

2 hr/day = 14 hrs/week = 728 hrs/year = 30 Days Per Year!

That’s a whole month!  What could you have accomplished in that time?  How many books could you have read?  What projects could you have completed?  What instruments could you have learned?  What people might you have met?  Think about it, in 12 years, you will have wasted an entire year of your life.

Personally, I allow myself 30 minutes per week (1 episode) of internet streamed shows.  That’s about a day wasted every year.  I can live with that for the payoff of winding down my mind a bit and relaxing.  Anything more is pushing it.

TV is, in my opinion, the greatest disease of the twenty first century.  Rip the cable out of the back of your set.  You’ll be glad you did.