How to not screw up your life (and those around you).

One of my favorite movies “not to watch” is Idiocracy. A “not to watch” movie is a movie that I really like the concept, but the pain of actually watching said movie outweighs the value of actually seeing the movie.  Confused?  Case in point, this Movie:

Idiocracy features Luke Wilson frozen by the military and unfrozen 500 years later. When he is unfrozen, he finds that stupid people have been breeding while intelligent people die out and he’s the smartest person in the world. He then must convince the people that, among other things, they must water crops with water instead of Gatorade to get them to grow.  Because of this revelation Luke becomes president of the United States.

Trailer:

Now you understand a “not to watch” movie.

The concept of Idiocracy is great; a society that is overcome with mind numbing entertainment allows itself to become victims of its own anti-intellectual gluttony.  What pains me (more than actually watching the movie) is that I see a lot of similarity’s between Idiocracy and our society and wonder how far (or close) we are away from becoming the society depicted in the movie.

I was having a discussion this week with a group of good friends discussing how to “not waste our lives” and the topic of technology came up.  It was really interesting to watch the different reactions to technology.  The emotion ranged from absolute disgust to ambivalence.   TV was hailed as a waste of time, Facebook was downright evil and Twitter was off the radar; right up there with beating kittens for fun.

I must admit that several years ago I was on a big “no TV” kick and I made sure to tell everyone I knew that I had given up TV.  It was a pride thing for me, as if because I wasn’t watching TV I was a better person.  Then one day, my good friend Ty called me out (as Ty often does) and said man you need to read Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality.  So I bought a copy of Blue Like Jazz and opened the section that Ty pointed me to.  The author, Donald Miller, basically says (I am paraphrasing here)

“These Christians who run around bragging about not watching TV, really drive me nuts, as if that has anything to do with one’s spirituality.  Watch TV or don’t watch TV, but don’t go around bragging about as if that is what makes you special.”

(Truth in Advertising: I really paraphrased that section, since I let someone borrow my book and I don’t have the section to quote – Sorry Donald for butchering your words).

Talk about a slap across the face.  Ty had my number and he had the decency to call me on it.

So after I read the book, and got over myself, I bought a big flat screen TV and every channel that DirectTV offered.  Thank you very much.

Now several years later I find myself on the “Kill Your TV” bandwagon.  Apparently this bandwagon is all the rage. Even in this documentary “No Impact Man” which chronicles a year in the life of the Beavan family trying to reduce their carbon footprint to zero, the husband rhetorically says maybe we should rename the movie, to:

“The year we didn’t watch TV and became better parents”

As if that was some get out of jail free card, in case someone discounted him as a “fringe wacko” as his wife suggested.

So I turned to “The Google” to see what it had to say about television:

And Technology:

And Twitter:

For that matter; Why am I______?

So if I get this right, TV is bad and technology is useful and twitter is popular.   Oh and people are tired, not losing weight, hungry, single, cold and depressed.

How did we get here?

I can look at Twitter and get this:

But I can also get this:

I can watch televison and see this:

But I can also see this:

It seems to me that like most things in life we have choices to make.

My dad had a great quote:

“In life, it is not about making the right versus wrong decison, but rather about making the good versus the best decision”

In other words, unless you are Roman Polansky your decisions are usually not black and white.  Instead they are broken down into thousands of little decisions;

• Should I go to happy hour or spend time with my kids?
• Should I watch TV or read a book?
• Should I work out or sleep in?
• Should I post some pictures to Facebook or help my elderly neighbor?
• Should I follow Sarah Silverman or Neil Tomba on Twitter?

Not life changing decisions, but decisions none the less.  And one little decision builds upon another little decision and all those little decisions make us numb until we have to make a large decision that will irrevocably change our life or someone elses.

Very few of these decisions are wrong, which is why they are so dangerous.

The question that we need to ask ourselves is: Are you making the best decision?

TV is not all bad, TV helps teach children that don’t have access to good teachers.  Facebook is not all bad, it connects with family and friends and enhances communication (albeit a little too much in certain cases).  Twitter is not all bad, I haven’t found a great use for it yet but I am sure someone will shortly.