Time

People who know me often wonder how I can possibly find the time to do all the things that I do. Usually they offer various theories having to do with some super-powers I must possess. These are all amusing, but the truth is much simpler:

I don’t watch television.

My television abstinence isn’t quite absolute — I’ll watch the occasional documentary, or news coverage, or even a movie. But I do not watch television day in and day out, as most people (worldwide, not just in the U.S.) do.

A quick google will get you various estimates of the time that the average American spends watching television, varying from 25 to 35 hours per week. Let’s call it 30 hours a week. That works out to about 1,500 hours a year. So in the 25 years that I have not been watching television, I’ve had about 38,000 hours of time to do other things. That’s the equivalent of 19 years of full-time work.

That’s my secret. It really is that simple. I’ve spent that time on wonderful vacations (including one-day local vacations), on my hobbies, on reading, and learning (which is really my meta-hobby). It’s true that I can read faster than most people, but that’s a small factor compared with not watching television — and I suspect that in no small part my reading skills are the result of having more practice.

Sorry folks, no super-powers here. And while my rather complete ignorance of the “television culture” has been the source of much amusement for others over the years, I don’t miss it myself at all. In fact, I think it leaves my brain just a little less cluttered, and more available for other things that seem somehow much more important and consequential to me. I may not know anything about The Simpsons (never having watched it), but I have read the Federalist Papers. I’ve completely missed the pleasures of American Idol, but I’ve hiked in the sub-alpine wildflowers of the San Juan Mountains. I don’t know What Not to Wear, but I do know how to program computers in a few dozen languages, how to design electronic hardware, and how to compute the proportions of aggregate, sand, and cement to make concrete.

These are trade-offs I’m quite happy with. And they are trade-offs that I think just about anyone could make, if it’s the right choice for them…