Get Off Your Ass...

Isn’t there more to life besides watching television and surfing the internet while eating a quart of Haagen-Dazs? I feel like our lives were made for more than sitting on our asses, staring at the biggest screen we could afford on store credit, watching a sport I’d rather be outside playing, media coverage on the latest catastrophe or a show that belittles my intelligence by asking me if “I’m smarter than a 5th grader!” Is this what tends to fill up most of your nights and weekends as well? Hell, most of these shows out there are struggling just to be labeled as ‘entertainment’ in general. Yet we pay top dollar, month in and month out, to lose brain cells and watch our waists grow larger by the hour!

I’ve found myself, too many times, using television and video games as a fall back to having no plans. Yet, I could clean my house, go work out, write a novel (or a blog), hang out with a friend or (dare I even say it) read a book! If you’re one of those people that makes the statement, “Why read the book when you can watch the movie?” I have my own statement for you: “You’re fucking stupid!” First off, the book is always better than the movie because it is the complete version of the story. And second, and most importantly, you had to actually read the book! At a minimum your brain is still being challenged with new words, definitions and sentence structure. My brain’s largest obstacle during a movie is rationing the correct amount of popcorn to last beyond the previews or overdosing on a beverage to trigger multiple bathroom breaks.

I believe this is also a contributor to what’s killing the new generation’s chances at even being halfway descent at any sports. For anyone over the age of 21: do you remember when your parents practically had to drag you inside when it started getting dark almost every night? That’s because we were outside, constantly, closing the cul-de-sacs for street hockey, kickball, baseball, hotbox, capture the flag, kick the can and super soaker wars! Now I drive by a park and there’s two kids on the swings, no one playing an actual sport and the deeply depressed emo-loner that’s five seconds from ending it all with a whole bottle of aspirin! Where are all the happy playing kids? I have no factual statistics for this but I know I can make an accurate statement by saying “the majority of them are staring at a television or computer screen.”

My point to all of this is the recommendation of challenging your mind more. It leads to good health, a bigger intellect, determination, a sense of accomplishment and overall a lack of laziness! It’s human nature to want to better yourself, whether you want to admit it or not, but you need to be the one to get up and do it. I’d tell everyone to start by throwing their televisions away, but I can never direct someone else to do something I wouldn’t do myself. After all, I’m still paying it off on store credit!