Priorities

By there very definition they should go prior, first, before. But I royally suck. Everything I put ‘first’ in my life I have not been putting first. The things I claim to be my top 3:

family, people, school.

The things that should be at the bottom:

TV, TV, and TV.

Well in the past few days I have spent ridiculous amounts of time watching TV, though thanks to the curse of Hulu, I am able to watch all the amazing shows on my computer whenever I want to. Tonight I just watched the actual television for the first time in awhile because it was a 2-hour premier.

But you know what I should have been doing instead of that? In particular, talking. Chatting with a good friend of mine who now goes to college thousands of miles away was able to talk to me on Skype. (Skype has chats, but also voice and video calls). Now there wasn’t any important issue to talk about, but the fact is that out of their busy schedule they told me ahead of time when they could basically take some time to have a phone call with me. The fact is that I would love to talk to this person, but I let the TV get in the way. Why have I let television shows get before my friends, family, and even God.

Back at Youth Convention in Columbus Ohio I had felt a major readjustment to my life. I had no desire for anything but to love God and to love my neighbors. I finally understood the concept of not having a TV or even internet and being happy. Why do I need TV? Right now it seems to be only a stumbling block. I have no problem with TV itself as it can contain awesome things as well as serve as a social activity, but when it consumes my time and comes prior to the things that are actually important, then it can be a source of sin, something that separates me from God.

This rapid descent into wastefulness of time has been mostly over the past weekish and I have noticeably seen a change in my attitude. I feel less happy and less social. More distanced. I just deleted my bookmark for Hulu, but obviously that will not stop my ‘addiction’, but its a start. I have found that the closer I am to God, the more everything else just falls into place.

I am not saying that I will never watch TV again, but for now I will stop checking daily to see if I have a new video in my queue and will not be checking the NBC schedule for the next episode of Heroes. I will catch back up with the shows that I enjoy once I have set other things back in their place.