I wanted to write my final conclusion after experiencing the three weeks of no TV and a week where I had my freedom again to watch whatever to see the contrast. I think I was successful in completing my three week “No Impact” change. I found it had many ups and downs- often I would feel that I didn’t miss TV and other times all I wanted to do was watch it. I don’t know how Colin Beavan and his family were able to do this and a lot more challenging resolutions for one year. In the past week of being able to finally catch up on shows, I went a little overboard. I thought and was hoping that I wouldn’t feel the need to watch as much TV anymore. Unfortunately, these past weeks was a failing for what I thought should have happened. I was hoping that after the first week I would watch less after experiencing the polar opposite. My goal for the future is to realize that there is always something you can be doing instead of watching TV and I want to be able to see that and do that.
I was worried that I wouldn’t really be doing enough to make “No Impact” because TV does not take up that much energy compared to many things used frequently. I am glad I chose TV though because it made me do something I wouldn’t normally do if I didn’t have a major reason behind it. Even though it wasn’t the biggest effect I could I have done this was the one that was personally affecting me and my time and needed to be changed. There might have been a small change in energy output because if no ones was in the room watching TV all the lights would be off and nothing would be on in the room compared to if I was watching it or someone else near me was watching. So although it wasn’t that much of an impact as far as saving energy was concerned, it was something that was important for me to see that TV was unnecessary.
The only thing that is a positive about having this past week to watch as much television as I want is I realized how much more time I spend with my family when we are watching TV or movies together. It is a sad reality that we spend considerable time together watching TV. I realized a fair amount of time during the three weeks that I wasn’t seeing my family as much or I was actually asking them to leave the room to watch TV somewhere else due to the fact our house is so open concept. So my other goal is still to be able to spend as much time with my family but not have to be in front of television to do so.
This experience has taught me a lot and I actually glad I decided to do it because if not I would have not accomplished the things I did (mentioned early in the blog). So I’ll be trying from now on not to waste so much of my time with mindless TV.
