I used to have a pretty solid routine of planting my butt on the couch come 7pm and watching TV for a few hours before bed. This routine had become less and less entertaining as I found less shows I enjoyed watching. Yet, every night, I’d put in a pretty solid effort to find something to watch. Mark and I had made comments about getting rid of our TV, but honestly “what else do you do at night?” I thought. Last year we sold our house and moved in to our small but cozy travel trailer, making the road our home and the wilderness our living room. Our flatscreen TV went in to storage and our living room furniture was given away. The space that fostered our habit of entertainment consumption was gone. It took me months to realize that I hadn’t thought about watching TV since.
Our house had a large portion of it dedicated to the habit of sitting and watching TV. Just like any house. What else is a living room for? But we only watched TV every night because we didn’t know what else to do. Removing that option opened a door to other things. We go for a walk every night at sunset. We read more. We play games. Sure we watch YouTube occasionally or stream a movie on our laptops if the weather is unpleasant, but it’s a deliberate choice when we do so. Every living room in America is designed around the television so no wonder that’s our go-to source of entertainment. But it’s not a requirement, it’s just what we do because that’s what everyone else has been doing for years. Yet, if we wanted, our living rooms could be our own personal libraries or game rooms, music rooms or yoga studios.
The point I’m trying to make isn’t meant to be solely about television. It’s about creating a space that fosters enjoyment in your life. If you create space for the things you love to do, you’re more likely to do those things. The mold that we are led to believe we’re supposed to conform to is hard to break. Hell, a lot of the time we don’t even realize we’re conforming. Yet your life is yours to design. Yours to enjoy. No matter how offbeat that may be.
