TV fast / Jejum televisivo

I'm not happy to say this but here at home, we used to watch/some still watch too much TV. You may not believe me but DH and his seventeen-year old son are so addicted that, when they are at home, the TV is on 24 hours/day. As for me and my daughter, I must say that we also watched too much TV.

About two weeks ago, I gave a serious thought to this issue and I realized that we couldn't go on like this. And I decided to do a TV fast. Well, DH and his son disn't join us in this TV fast, which makes it more difficult for me and my daughter because we live in a rather small flat and when one member of the family is watching TV, it is almost impossible not to watch it, or at least listen to it. But this difficulty didn't refrain me from going on a TV fast. I knew it wasn't going to be too difficult for me because God is changing me and molding me into a new woman every day. If it was a year or two ago, it would seem the end of the world. But not now. As for my daughter, I thought it would be really hard. But I was wrong. I won't say it is being easy for her but she accepted these new rules fairly well. And doesn't complain. But I've come to realize (especially now that I have four children at home) that children who don't watch TV require much more attention and energy to parents.

I have to say that our fast is not a complete one. I allow Catarina to watch some TV or a video at the end of the day. As for me, I haven't watched any TV for the past two weeks and I'm not missing it. And I realized that it is possible to live a normal life without the daily news (and lately they are terrible because violence is increasing in our country at an amazing rate). Though our TV fast is very recent, I have already experienced thebenefits of doing it. The first one is that I feel much more relaxed because too much information creates stress. The second one is probably the most important one (maybe I should have put it first). It is TIME. With less or no TV, you have more time. More time to do a lot of important things: to pray, to read (I've rediscovered the pleasure of reading and I've read more in these two weeks than I would normally do in two months), to talk, to accomplish all those projects that we've been putting away for a long time, to spend time with our loved ones, etc.

It does make a difference in our lives to watch less or no TV at all. If you haven't done it before, just give it a try.