Less Television, More Reading
Well, it's that time of year again.
That time of year when people start to make resolutions or changes in their lives. Apparently I'm no different, except for the fact that this year my challenge isn't going to involve either a diet that's too difficult to consistently follow or a workout regiment that I will fail to comply precisely 9 days later (and that's being generous).
My story began last summer, when my wife and I decided to increase our monthly expenditure for cable/internet -- upgrading from crappy Comcast to glorious AT&T U-verse. However, just a few months into our special price plan and I began to feel that we were spending too much money for extra channels we rarely watched, all while spending equal (if not more) time still watching shows and movies on Netflix. The advent of streaming subscriptions and being able to pick and choose what I want to watch, discover unknown gems, or being able to binge-watch entire series in a matter of days or weeks has made it much more difficult to leave the couch these days.
It all started with Netflix "OG" and having the opportunity to choose from a vast library of films and television shows that you weren't able to find at your local Blockbuster (rest in peace, my friend--you will be missed--sort of). I've had a Netflix account in my name for roughly 14 year years now. I have faithfully been one of their customers ever since they first started shipping discs out to Tennessee, where I anxiously awaited DVDs to arrive by mail from somewhere in northern California.
Then came their streaming (many years later, I might add). Their wonderful, gloriously free streaming. I think I discovered this for the first time when I went through one of my bouts of unemployment and spent the better part of one day propped up on the guest bed in the office, watching a couple of documentaries that had suddenly been made available for instant streaming. I was hooked.
Then after they started charging for it, they turned their fantastically addictive product into something even better. How did they do that, you say? By inventing a built-in feature called, "I know this episode just ended, but don't get up to search for the remote. We'll push play on the next episode for you. Go ahead and crack open another beer and kick your shoes off. You deserve it." Maybe that's not the technical name, but that's what it did. In fact, I remember not liking this feature initially. Probably because I knew what the feature was called before they named it.
So, that leads me to what now? Stop watching television? No. That would be silly. But something happened this past weekend that made me re-evaluate my current habits.
I hadn't felt well on Saturday night moving right on into Sunday morning. I think I was still fighting a cold from the previous week. Whatever it was, it played with my ability to make good decisions, it kept me from church, and it kept me from going outside and enjoying the sunshine and mild temperatures that normally don't accommodate Nashville in January. Instead, it kept me on the couch for a majority of the day, covered up with a comfy blanket and glued to my flat-screen. But it also forced me to arrive at the conclusion that I watch entirely too much television.
So, I first thought of setting goals. Everyone needs to set goals. In fact, I would argue as to why my life and/or career is currently stagnate is due to not setting any personal goals, but that's a different post for a different time.
Where was I again? Oh yes, goals.
I don't usually set reading goals -- at least not recently. From time to time I've attempted to read the entire Bible in one year, usually right around January 1st. (Surprising, huh?) That usually lasted a good three months -- which wasn't too bad, but trying to power your way through Leviticus or Numbers was like time traveling back to high school and forcing yourself to read the first act of Hamlet knowing there's a test in the morning.
Then my newest and most recent failure entered into the picture when attempting to read more in 2013.
This past year I purchased a fantastic tablet. (It was the Google Nexus 7, if you must know.) I quickly loaded it up with wonderful apps, including Amazon's Kindle App and then promptly spent what small amount of pocket change I had left at the end of each month on eBooks which I never read.
Out of the two dozen eBooks I've downloaded, almost all of them just sat there... after being downloaded... for months... never to be looked at past Page 7 ever again. I did this a lot in college, too, but with actual books. I'd buy one that looked really interesting, drop my hard earned cash at Borders (again, rest in peace, my friend) or Barnes & Noble and then I'd let it collect dust on my bookshelf until it was traded in for credit at McKay's about a decade later. It was a vicious cycle that I had quickly adapted into the digital age (without the benefit of any resale value).
And let's also not forget about all of the free public domain "classic" literature which was also downloaded onto my tablet. All of those books you were supposed to read in high school, but you told yourself that you would read (or re-read) them one day later when you were older and more mature. You know the ones I'm talking about. They looked like this:
Or did the books you read more closely resemble these:
Yeah, those... CliffsNotes. (And no, it's not "Cliff Notes", which is a common mistake. A mistake I most certain made my entire four years in high school, mind you.) I think their new marketing campaign should be this: "Because you never really read all those books in high school either, did you?"
I think I only read 75% of the books that were assigned to me back then. The other 25% were spent either blatantly not reading the material -- which resulted in me being chewed out by my sophomore English teacher the following morning -- or reading those lovely yellow and black road construction sign-themed books. Remember kids, we didn't have the benefits of what the vast internet is now at your fingertips. We had to rely on the limited resources of what CompuServe, Prodigy, or AOL could provide circa 1991. Or the public library. Wikipedia, eat your heart out!
But I digress, and more importantly, avoid the subject matter at hand. I was setting goals, right? And pointing out that I couldn't push myself to read digital books any more than paper ones.
Regardless of how I arrived at this point in my life, it's clear that reading has never been my strong suit. I've never struggled with it, but I definitely gravitated towards the visual medium. That being said, I still love to read. I spent the last three months of 2013 reading the first four books in Stephen King's massively epic Dark Tower series. My momentum also came to a screeching halt after finishing Book 4. If you've read Wizard and Glass, you should understand (hopefully). I made a promise to a friend that I'd finish the series -- and I fully intend to keep that promise -- I'm just not sure that it will be completed this year.
Nonetheless, I still need to get back into the swing of things; crack open a book or two. Therefore, I've decided to set the follow goals in my Less Television, More Reading 2014 Resolution:
Here are the books I've selected so far:
While these goals aren't anywhere near record-breaking for some people, they're very important to me. Here's hoping I'll be able to carry out these goals. I might even update you from time to time on my progress, but I won't make any promises (at least not now, but I feel that an year-end summary will most likely be in order). Feel free at any time to reach out to me and hold my feet to the fire. I'm pretty sure I can handle it. If not, at least I know I can buy new shoes.
That time of year when people start to make resolutions or changes in their lives. Apparently I'm no different, except for the fact that this year my challenge isn't going to involve either a diet that's too difficult to consistently follow or a workout regiment that I will fail to comply precisely 9 days later (and that's being generous).
My story began last summer, when my wife and I decided to increase our monthly expenditure for cable/internet -- upgrading from crappy Comcast to glorious AT&T U-verse. However, just a few months into our special price plan and I began to feel that we were spending too much money for extra channels we rarely watched, all while spending equal (if not more) time still watching shows and movies on Netflix. The advent of streaming subscriptions and being able to pick and choose what I want to watch, discover unknown gems, or being able to binge-watch entire series in a matter of days or weeks has made it much more difficult to leave the couch these days.
It all started with Netflix "OG" and having the opportunity to choose from a vast library of films and television shows that you weren't able to find at your local Blockbuster (rest in peace, my friend--you will be missed--sort of). I've had a Netflix account in my name for roughly 14 year years now. I have faithfully been one of their customers ever since they first started shipping discs out to Tennessee, where I anxiously awaited DVDs to arrive by mail from somewhere in northern California.
Then came their streaming (many years later, I might add). Their wonderful, gloriously free streaming. I think I discovered this for the first time when I went through one of my bouts of unemployment and spent the better part of one day propped up on the guest bed in the office, watching a couple of documentaries that had suddenly been made available for instant streaming. I was hooked.
Then after they started charging for it, they turned their fantastically addictive product into something even better. How did they do that, you say? By inventing a built-in feature called, "I know this episode just ended, but don't get up to search for the remote. We'll push play on the next episode for you. Go ahead and crack open another beer and kick your shoes off. You deserve it." Maybe that's not the technical name, but that's what it did. In fact, I remember not liking this feature initially. Probably because I knew what the feature was called before they named it.
So, that leads me to what now? Stop watching television? No. That would be silly. But something happened this past weekend that made me re-evaluate my current habits.
I hadn't felt well on Saturday night moving right on into Sunday morning. I think I was still fighting a cold from the previous week. Whatever it was, it played with my ability to make good decisions, it kept me from church, and it kept me from going outside and enjoying the sunshine and mild temperatures that normally don't accommodate Nashville in January. Instead, it kept me on the couch for a majority of the day, covered up with a comfy blanket and glued to my flat-screen. But it also forced me to arrive at the conclusion that I watch entirely too much television.
So, I first thought of setting goals. Everyone needs to set goals. In fact, I would argue as to why my life and/or career is currently stagnate is due to not setting any personal goals, but that's a different post for a different time.
Where was I again? Oh yes, goals.
I don't usually set reading goals -- at least not recently. From time to time I've attempted to read the entire Bible in one year, usually right around January 1st. (Surprising, huh?) That usually lasted a good three months -- which wasn't too bad, but trying to power your way through Leviticus or Numbers was like time traveling back to high school and forcing yourself to read the first act of Hamlet knowing there's a test in the morning.
Then my newest and most recent failure entered into the picture when attempting to read more in 2013.
This past year I purchased a fantastic tablet. (It was the Google Nexus 7, if you must know.) I quickly loaded it up with wonderful apps, including Amazon's Kindle App and then promptly spent what small amount of pocket change I had left at the end of each month on eBooks which I never read.
Out of the two dozen eBooks I've downloaded, almost all of them just sat there... after being downloaded... for months... never to be looked at past Page 7 ever again. I did this a lot in college, too, but with actual books. I'd buy one that looked really interesting, drop my hard earned cash at Borders (again, rest in peace, my friend) or Barnes & Noble and then I'd let it collect dust on my bookshelf until it was traded in for credit at McKay's about a decade later. It was a vicious cycle that I had quickly adapted into the digital age (without the benefit of any resale value).
And let's also not forget about all of the free public domain "classic" literature which was also downloaded onto my tablet. All of those books you were supposed to read in high school, but you told yourself that you would read (or re-read) them one day later when you were older and more mature. You know the ones I'm talking about. They looked like this:
Or did the books you read more closely resemble these:
Yeah, those... CliffsNotes. (And no, it's not "Cliff Notes", which is a common mistake. A mistake I most certain made my entire four years in high school, mind you.) I think their new marketing campaign should be this: "Because you never really read all those books in high school either, did you?"
I think I only read 75% of the books that were assigned to me back then. The other 25% were spent either blatantly not reading the material -- which resulted in me being chewed out by my sophomore English teacher the following morning -- or reading those lovely yellow and black road construction sign-themed books. Remember kids, we didn't have the benefits of what the vast internet is now at your fingertips. We had to rely on the limited resources of what CompuServe, Prodigy, or AOL could provide circa 1991. Or the public library. Wikipedia, eat your heart out!
But I digress, and more importantly, avoid the subject matter at hand. I was setting goals, right? And pointing out that I couldn't push myself to read digital books any more than paper ones.
Regardless of how I arrived at this point in my life, it's clear that reading has never been my strong suit. I've never struggled with it, but I definitely gravitated towards the visual medium. That being said, I still love to read. I spent the last three months of 2013 reading the first four books in Stephen King's massively epic Dark Tower series. My momentum also came to a screeching halt after finishing Book 4. If you've read Wizard and Glass, you should understand (hopefully). I made a promise to a friend that I'd finish the series -- and I fully intend to keep that promise -- I'm just not sure that it will be completed this year.
Nonetheless, I still need to get back into the swing of things; crack open a book or two. Therefore, I've decided to set the follow goals in my Less Television, More Reading 2014 Resolution:
- Read a minimum of 12 books. Twelve books, twelve months. It's a good round number and completely logical that I can -- and should -- cover at least one book a month.
- Read at least 2 hours a day. That's one-twelfth of my day, including sleep. Considering that after I arrive home from work I still have at least five hours before bed (most nights), this should be completely feasible.
- Read a minimum of 4 non-fiction books. I've spent a great deal of my life reading about fictional things that are completely inconsequential to all matter of life on this planet. I think I'd like to change that.
Here are the books I've selected so far:
- The French Connection | Robin Moore
- Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan | Edmund Morris
- John Adams | David McCullough
- American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House | John Meacham
- The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla | Stephen King
- A Time to Kill | John Grisham
While these goals aren't anywhere near record-breaking for some people, they're very important to me. Here's hoping I'll be able to carry out these goals. I might even update you from time to time on my progress, but I won't make any promises (at least not now, but I feel that an year-end summary will most likely be in order). Feel free at any time to reach out to me and hold my feet to the fire. I'm pretty sure I can handle it. If not, at least I know I can buy new shoes.
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