For many Americans, their favorite hobby is watching television. This may not sound like a hobby to some people, but it is. The definition of a hobby is to do some leisure or recreational activity outside of one’s career. Watching television is probably the most common hobby there is. With the amount of hours that people spend watching television each day, and it is climbing, television watching easily becomes one of the most popular activities for among Americans. I would not say that it is a constructive one, but it is a popular one. What else do people spend their time doing more? They work for eight hours a day, and then the average person watches TV for five to eight hours a day. Nobody spends that much time doing one other particular activity.
The lesson we learn from this is that not all hobbies are created equal. Some hobbies can be more constructive and enhance your lifestyle or quality of life more than others. There are an infinite number of things that you could do, which would be more constructive than watching television. Read a book, go out and do something with some friends, go do some sort of physical exercise. Find a hobby at the nearest hobby shop, that is constructive, that helps you in some way and improves your life in some way. Find something that gives you a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment, something that can give you the sense of feeling like you have accomplished something.
Most people I have talked to, who watch an enormous amount of television, admit themselves that television is boring and a waste of time. So why do they spend so much time doing it? Some people, I think, are just unaware of how much time they are actually spending. If you sit down and show them how much of their life is being spend in front of the TV, they would be surprised. Others watch television for lack of something better to do. They cannot think of things to do, or do not want to take the effort to think of better things to do. The TV has already warped their minds of creativity. They have become slaves to it, unable to act any longer on their own or think of their own things to do. Others might watch it from laziness. They just want to sit around, so why not turn on the TV while they are just sitting there. Others might watch just for a break from anything. It is kind of nice sometimes to relax your brain after using it at work or school all day. Watching TV is very relaxing to the brain. You do not even have to think you can just sit there and stare blankly at the screen. It is great! Well, these are just things I have thought of for people spending so much time watching TV. There are probably numerous other excuses, but none of them justify the time and talent wasted on such an endeavor, talents that could be developed in other areas.
One of my favorite quotes is “money is only as good as the good that you can do with it." I think we could say the same thing about our time. “Time is only as good as the good that we can do with," so lets make our time useful and do something good, something constructive. Plan out your days and your weeks plan good uplifting activities plan something that will help you and others. TV is often just a fallback for people who do not plan other, more constructive things.
Peter Jay is the Owner/President and CEO of Variety Access – Your online hobby store and more. For more information about hobbies, hobby products, or Variety Access, go to VarietyAccess.com.
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