The Cost of Entertainment

DISCLAIMER: Apparently , I am a long winded writer. What was meant to be a quick post about a new year’s resolution that I (Ben) made for Marci and I, is looking to be two longer posts....Whoops!

I  (Ben) have a confession to make; Not one of those guilty pleasure confessions like, “I thoroughly enjoy color coordinating every aspect of my cycling hobby” (which is completely true), but a serious confession. I have wasted a rather large amount of time in my life. “Wasted time? On what?” you might ask. Well, to keep the list short, I’ll pick on the big hitters: Video Games, TV/Movies, and The Internet. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying these things are unequivocally bad and I certainly don’t regret all of the time I have spent doing these things. Many of my friendships were born and strengthened over the common bond of, and the many hours spent playing, video games. TV/Movies can be a great way to explore thoughts and ideas about the world around us as well as provide a humorous reprieve from the monotony of “the daily grind”.  And the internet? Oh, how I love the internet!  

I am constantly dreaming of and thinking of awesome things to do, create, see, and explore, but I find myself having done very few of them (if any!).  Many recent events have pushed this issue to the forefront on my mind, but I don’t need to explain those to get my point across. After much contemplation, I can come up with no other thing to blame for not having done these “awesome things” other than myself for wasting my time, talents, and opportunities on excessively entertaining myself.

This brings me to the second topic of this Blog post, a concept I’ve decided to call “The Cost of Entertainment.”

The idea goes something like this. Sitting on the couch for a few hours to watch yet another episode of a show I’ll never remember costs me very little [insert cost here] now, but it could cost me great deal of [insert cost here] later. For example, let’s use health as a cost. Sitting on the couch for a few hours now costs me very little health in the immediate, and therefore, I don’t think twice and indulge. However, if this pattern continues, it follows that my health will suffer greatly in the long term. You could replace the health concept of the “cost” with skills, talents, personal relations, and the list goes on. What skills could I be developing? What relationships am I neglecting or could I be building? What talents am I squandering?  It is so very easy to not think about these things, and instead entertain myself with “cheap” entertainment.

As a tactic to combat this, I have put in place an actual system that will “cost me” to entertain myself through these forms of seemingly cheap entertainment.

• To watch a TV Show or Movie, I must spend one entertainment credit.
• To earn an entertainment credit, I must partake in one solid workout.
• At any given time, I can only be 1 credit in debt. (this allows for the emergency, “Oh, I forgot about that show!”)

I hope that this will force me to think things like, “Do I REALLY want to go run 3 miles so I can watch this movie?” and, “Is this show really worth a trip to the gym?” Essentially, I want to think, “Can I afford this entertainment?” and,  “Do I want to afford this entertainment?” In the end, I hope that after enough decisions like this, I will be able to retrain my brain to think of entertainment as costly use of my time.

Thank you if you made it this far and haven’t TLDR’d on me (Too Long, Didn’t Read. It’s a internet thing. I did mention how much I loved the internet right?).  I should probably stop writing now.

I promise that my next post will be much more hilarious and fun. It’ll cover such topics as, “What will Ben be doing with his time now that he’s not wasting it?” and “What goods and/or services has Ben been offered, instead of cash, for things I’ve been selling on craigslist.”

-Ben

P.S. Check out these awesome videos on YouTube that talk about willpower, habits, and how you make decisions. If you don't have a YouTube account, I strongly recommend you create, one, and subscribe to channels like Epipheo (who made these videos). Also, as a shameless plug, I would also recommend you subscribe to our YouTube channel.