What's eating up all of your time?

I've decided to give it up, cold turkey. I'm ready for a change. I don't like the old way of doing things; it doesn't suit me. It doesn't make my life work the way I would really like it to. And if I don't like how something is going, then the most logical thing to do is make a change.

I've always thought of myself as someone who does more productive things with my time than just sit around and watch TV. So many people just sit around and watch TV, and I wonder how they ever have time to do anything else. And then you have a conversation with them, and the only thing going on in their life that they have to talk about is what happened last night on their favorite TV show. How boring; how sad.

But then I realize that for someone who doesn't even have TV (no cable television in this house), I watch a lot of TV. I am a Hulu addict. I am just as tied down to the weekly TV schedule as any other TV addict. I have my certain shows that I watch every week. But I like to pretend that I'm not as attached to them, because I don't watch them the night they air; I can watch them anytime I want. And sometimes I even watch them several days or even a week after they aired on TV. But the real point is that I still watch them.

I catch myself thinking, how fast can I get done making dinner so I have enough time to watch Dancing with the Stars tonight. Or, can these dishes wait until tomorrow, so I can watch a couple of shows right now? I push other things out of the way that I want to get done, that are important to me, so that I can fit some TV shows into my life. And they take up so much time.

And I guess I just didn't realize how much time they took up until I stopped watching them for a week. But now, I feel so different. I feel more relaxed. I feel calm. I don't feel hurried or rushed because I have all the time in the world. I mean, I don't have kids or much of a social life really, so compared to a lot of people, I have lots of time. And I was wasting at least 30 minutes of it a day on TV shows. I could have been using that time to write or read. I could have been outside walking. I could have spent that time cleaning something or organizing a closet or cupboard. I could have been using that time to make a grocery list or cook some food. Heck, I could have used some of that time to simply take a nap and be that much more rested.

I am not saying that I will never watch a TV show again. I like TV shows. I just don't want it to be the primary use of my free time. I just don't want to be tied down to the days and weeks that one of my TV shows has a new episode. So that's it; I'm quitting my Hulu habit, cold turkey, and it feels good.