Given the crazy amount of time people spend in front of the stream of randomness (that's the TV) during say a year, you sure owe yourself to spend some time with some alternatives! The more you feed yourself with random information, the more a random life you will get! There are great alternatives - people have gotten this weird idea that they somehow need to watch TV - you don't!
I don't like having a television in my home. What annoys me is that I do not choose what to watch. Of course, I can always zap through the available channels, but that is not "choosing what to see". That is "choosing what not to see" and for me there is a huge difference.
Giving the power of the remote control I'm able to say no to [number of tv channels available minus 1] streams of information. For most people in 2009 this gives you the ability to choose from something in between 0 and 100 more or less random streams. I know that TV channels are trying to target their viewers, but giving the fact that there are often millions of of viewers per channel, the chances of one of the channels being somewhere near perfect for you at any given time is very unlikely.
If I was to explain this to someone, most people would probably just agree, roll their eyes, and then go back to consuming American Idols Season 23 or whatever is on. Put another way, people seem accept that the situation they have put themselves in is not optimal and yet they are not doing anything to change it. Of course, we cannot live 100% of our time optimally (whatever that means), nor should we, but given the crazy amount of time people spend in front of the stream of randomness (that's the TV) during say a year, you sure owe yourself to spend some time with some alternatives! The more you feed yourself with random information, the more random your life will become!
There are great alternatives - people have gotten this weird idea that they somehow need to watch TV - you don't!
Books are a thousand times better than TV when it comes to enriching your life and actively affecting your future. The reason is that when selecting what books to read you force yourself to think about what you want to read - where you want to take your life. In order to do this you must have an intention, and intentions requires goals thus forcing you to setup these if not consciously, then subconsciously.
The internet is another great alternative to the TV. While not being as information dense as a great book, you have a lot more information streams to choose from. This increases the likelihood of finding a stream appropriate for you.
I'm not asking you to throw out your TV or anythin, but please do yourself the the simple favor of asking yourself what you want you want in life, and then select some streams of information that aligns with this. Want to be a great programmer? "Get a book about it":http://pragprog.com/titles/cfcar2/the-passionate-programmer. Want to start your own business? "Ask Google for help":http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=start+your+own+business&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8. Want more motivation in life? "Listen to self awareness gurus":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x1ddBJ3kiY.
As you might have guessed I do not own a TV. If you do, I encourage you to really consider whether you really want to continue spending a high percentage of you life on earth inactively being fed with streams of random information? The alternative is to intensionally drive your life towards your dreams, simply by selecting what streams of information is being sent to your mind.