Friday, November 14, 2008

Eleven Years Without It - sorry Philo

Approximately eleven years ago I decided that cable was an expense that I could live without. I was just done with my masters and hadn't started making the big bucks yet and had student loans to repay so why not get rid of television? Besides, it gave me an excellent excuse to visit the boys two doors down when NBA playoffs came around*. I haven't paid for television since. No cable. No satellite. Not even rabbit ears.

It was seriously one of the best decisions (and easiest to live with) I've ever made. I can't imagine how I ever found the time for "must see TV" every Thursday night. I'm able to watch LDS General Conference online. I'm even able to watch a few other shows online these days (Monk and Psych are a couple of favorites). I've saved lots of money.

I was a pretty faithful follower of a few shows when I discontinued my television watching. I tried to have high standards and not watch trash. Then I saw some of those same shows and I realized that I had become very desensitized to them when I was watching every week. With a little distance between me and my beloved plots and characters I realized they were feeding me a large dose of yuck. I don't need any more yuck in my life.

Phil and I have discussed what to do about TV as our family grows. We don't want it to be the forbidden wonder that resides in the homes of friends and therefore gets partaken of in excess when accessible. For now, we'll stick to our decision to keep it out of our home. We'll probably be those weirdos who don't have TV for the rest of our lives.



*I ended up marrying one of those boys even though he never watched the playoffs with us.

4 response(s):

Claire said...

When we bought our house we decided cable was something we were willing to part with. We do have an antenna that closely resembles a helicopter propeller but in February, that will become useless. We're contemplating going to no tv at all. We have plenty of movies that we enjoy watching, and on the rare occassion that there is a show we enjoy, we wait till its out on DVD and watch it season by season. In our 2 years of having 5 channels, I've found that I really don't miss cable.

Layne said...

I admire you. Although we don't usually watch TV on the TV, we do watch some terrible garbage online. I have a pretty strong stomach for filth if it comes in a humorous package, and I'm embarrassed about it. A while ago in Stake Conference my dad gave a talk about media, and I was all ready to toss the TV, but I wussed out.

Jenny said...

I'm impressed! We have never had cable, but I don't know what I would do without PBS Kids! Especially after having a baby- its kindof sad how much TV and movies Emma and I watch all day while I try to sneek in a 5 minute nap or feed the baby all day long! Way to go!

Laura said...

Except for a few incidents of weakness, Chris and I have done without TV for our entire marriage. We do have a "closed circut" system of Netflix DVDs for the family to enjoy, so we get some tube time... I only kicked the TV habit because I know I waste too much time on all the cool shows out there. My weakness for TV makes it so I had to just quit cold-turkey. Now that Conference is available online, we are more inclined to keep our plans for no TV... Plus, it's expensive up here! Starts at $65 a month for basic!