Why I’m Binging Less TV

When I was in college, I really wanted to write for TV. I took all the writing classes. And one of the things they teach you in those writing classes is to watch what you want to write. It was also a good idea to track new shows to notice trends.

Well, I took this advice to heart and I started to increase the TV shows I was watching.

At the time I was catching up on and starting:

And much more.

This was before I had Netflix or Hulu and before either of them had their original shows.

As you can imagine, if you’re following more than 3 shows, your week can get pretty jam packed. I would keep track of premiere dates and when they would go on hiatus. There would be times where I would have at least 2 shows per day that I wanted to watch.

Even after I finished college I was still watching a lot of TV and binging full seasons at a time. Then grad school came and went and I was doing the same thing.

Not that that was the ONLY thing I was doing with my time. Of course I was doing other things. But, I think I could have done a lot more without the distractions.

If you think about it, watching TV takes A LOT of your time. And if it’s a complicated plot like GOT or Mad Men, etc. you HAVE to pay attention.

These days I still have shows that I follow. I can’t miss an episode of The Flash and Brooklyn 99 and Superstore crack me up.

But now I’m being more conscious of how watching TV allows me to put off other things that I should be doing to make my life what I want it to be.

I would tell myself, “Hey, you’ve had a long day at work. Let’s unwind watch an episode of Riverdale before bed”.

If I was to be honest with myself, I was living my life through these shows instead of living my own.

One resolution I had this year was to write more. And it’s hard for me to write when there’s a show going on in the background. I know that about myself. And yet I choose the show over sitting my ass down to write.

Camila Cabello’s music video for Havana hit me where it hurt when her abuela says, “Life isn’t going to come knocking on your door. You have to go and find it.”

Pause, as I watch the video again, haha.

This past weekend I was trying to use the free time that I had to write out thoughts that I’ve been having about my life and outline my goals for the next few years. And look, I also created this blog to keep up my writing resolution! It’s August, never too late to start back up your New Year’s resolutions.

And I did not watch one episode of anything.

(Okay, I did watch To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before on Saturday night but I had already had a productive day before hand. Plus, Noah Centineo! Need I say more??)