282 Minutes

One place I always fail in social situations is keeping up with current entertainment and advertising. In meetings at work or discussions around the water cooler, people are always discussing sports or some show they saw on TV. I looked it up, and the average American watches 82 minutes of television a day. That is almost 5 hours sitting in front of the TV. I cannot even begin to wrap my brain around how much time that is. There are months where I don't watch that much TV in an entire month. My idea of binge watching a show would be to watch a couple of episodes of the Big Bang Theory. I tend to avoid shows that are longer than 20 minutes because I get anxious if I sit that long. I often have trouble sitting through an entire movie at home, so I watch very few movies. 

One of the issues I have is that I get really stiff and sore if I sit too long. Typically after about an hour of sitting my hips and knees will start to ache. I have the same problem sitting on airplane flights or going to concerts. I spend so much time at work sitting, that if I am not working, I prefer to be standing and moving around. At work I am able to move my legs more freely, so the stiffness isn't as noticeable, but I still notice it when I get up and start to move around. 

More than the physical discomfort though is the fact that I get extremely anxious just sitting around. I don't like wasting time in my life, and there are so many things I want to do on a daily basis that sitting in front of the TV seems like an utter and complete waste of time. Even when I find a show entertaining, I feel anxious because there are so many other things I could be doing. I am very goal and accomplishment driven, so wasting time in front of the TV makes me feel guilty and it brings me down. 

When I was young, in the days before streaming, there were shows that I would enjoy watching, but it always turned out that I would miss a show and get out of step in a series or something. I hated being tied to a schedule to watch TV, and I was always much happier doing some kind of activity instead. Even with the advent of streaming, I have a lot of difficulty getting into a show that requires any commitment. There are times where I will be in the mood to watch something and scroll through all the options and end up not watching anything because all the shows are too long or they require being willing to commit to watching a season.

I have never had any interest in video games or taking naps for the same reasons. I have so many interests that I don't have time to pursue, and wasting my life being a spectator isn't something I am willing to do. There may be a point in my life where I wont be able to be as active as I like, and then maybe I will spend time in front of the television, but until that time, I want to pack in as many activities in a day as I can possibly fit. There is the old saying that "There will be plenty of time to sleep when you are dead". I have always felt that was an appropriate way of looking at life.