Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Abstinence Makes the Heart Grow Apathetic.

Now that I think about it, that title may be a little misleading. Let me explain:

If you know me, you know I like routine. A couple of things have happened to me lately that caused a disruption to my normal routine. 

1. Tiling my entire basement. (Again, more on that to come)

2. The Winter Olympics. 

It may very well be unAmerican to say that I could not care any less about the Olympics. Not a big sports fan. I do find a few events entertaining, but I am unwilling to sit through hours of droning on and on about the difficulty of a triple sow cow or watching people dodge flags as they speed down a hill. Let's face it, the reason most of us watch that is so that we can see the occasional wipe out (hoping, of course, that no one is injured, but the wipe out is no less spectacular!). 

Anyway, as a result of the Olympics, there has been absolutely nothing on television for two weeks straight. As a "routine" person, I have a slate of shows that I watch at certain times of my week. I don't like disruption. Not one bit.

As I was tiling my basement floor I had a fair amount of time to think. You know what I realized? Not once did I think about missing a show; I actually realized that I could go without it. 

Now, I know what you're thinking I'm thinking. Don't go accusing me of thinking. I'm not a "throw out the TV" kind of guy. I did realize that I had been giving priority to things in my life that had no business being in a place of priority. I guess abstinence from television made me realize that I don't really care that much about it. (Thus the title)

I don't watch any shows that are necessarily bad, but they aren't beneficial either. I've begun the process of deleting some timers on my DVR, not all of them, but some. It's only been a week and a half, but you know what I've noticed? I have more time. I have time where I can enjoy spending time with my family, taking with my wife, and more time to focus on what's really important (more on that next Wednesday). 

Here is what comes to my mind:

Philippians 4:8 says,
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthythink about such things.

None of these seem to me to be undesirable. 

My question for you today is this: what is in your life that you don't need? What, if you eliminated it from your routine, would give you the margin in your life to to focus on the most important things?

It's a process for me and will continue to be so for some time. I hope you'll consider joining me. 

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