Organic Mutant

For all of my harping last week about the evils of teevee (or tell-lie-vision, as xtina says), one thing I did not focus on is my own role injecting the poison into my brain. Certainly teevee is chock full of junk, but it also can occupy a non-destructive place in the hands of a responsible consumer. Therein lay the root of my own problem with it, as in the end I did not feel that I was able to stick to the proper, minimal level of teevee watching. If I had the discipline to watch, say, no more than four hours a week, I’d have not felt the compulsion to remove it from my home.

So I kicked it to the curb, got it out of my life. But that is not the end of the story. It is the beginning.

(more after the jump) Here is where I really earn my stripes: what else will change in my life, now that I have removed the lazy box? Of course, there are lots of great ideas as to what one might do after he is released from the cursed teevee life. I have high aspirations for doing lots of things.

But getting things done is not an automatic consequence of teevee removal. Now I begin to work on developing good habits, focusing energies on some key goals, and - toughest of all - being disciplined. With all things, it is not the starting but the finishing that defines our accomplishments. It is the difference between going to the gym for, say, two weeks, rather than making exercise part of your lifestyle.

Step one: select some achievable goals. Okay, this post is more meta, as I don’t have the goals laid out yet, but be assured such a post will follow. Actually, there is one goal that I have already set, and thus far have lived up to it: blogging daily. What I like most about it is that moment when, after posting, I can sit there and enjoy (briefly!) another success (as in, meeting one of my self-determined goals.)

Such positive reenforcement is a huge key to finding the motivation to attack the bigger and harder goals that I have or will set for myself. Financial, fitness, and professional goals are at the top of the agenda, but all of those require commitments an order of magnitude higher than does blogging. Still, meeting my blogging goals has given me both a forum to focus on my self reflection, and a small taste of the rewards of self discipline. But ahead is where the true joy and satisfaction lay, and that is where I am headed: on a journey to the land of the Big Rocks.