Why the Writer’s Strike was the best thing for Society

Some of my favorite TV shows include:
24
Grey’s Anatomy
The Office
Brothers and Sisters

I was just as sad as anyone when I found out they were not going to come on this season, or possibly they would come on, but in an unexpected, inconsistent manner. I had my withdrawals every now and then, but it really didn’t affect my life that much. You see, I didn’t feel like I was “missing something” because there was nothing to miss! It turns out, it was actually making my life better.

Do I learn anything from those shows that I can apply to real life, or that will make me smarter? No. They are purely about situations I will never be in, relationships that are unreal and overdramatic, and beautiful people that don’t ever exist in masses like that together. Maybe once in a blue moon I would see something that made me think about my own life and come to some conclusion…but this was really rare.

That’s why, when the shows came back on recently, and I once again found myself glued to the T.V., I realized what a relaxing break it was to not “have a show to catch” (and I have DVR, yet the time commitment still builds up). I’m convinced I was 10 times more productive during the period when the shows were not on than I am now. I say this because I hope everyone realized what I did. Without so much T.V., you can take the time to have nice quiet evenings at home (listening to the radio or music or heaven forbid, read a book), talking to your spouse, walking the dogs, cooking a longer supper, working on a scrapbook or homework with a clear mind (not distracted by the T.V. story line), or getting some other things done during the week that you won’t have to find time to do on the weekend. When I think back on these times, it makes me happy and feel relaxed. I hope that others out there were able to take advantage of the writer’s strike and enjoy their life for the other things in it, even if only for a little while. I have made it my goal to try to keep the house like that more often, because its just … well, pleasant. We’ve also tried to cut back on our shows, which we’ve been pretty successful at from the list you saw above (although new shows are becoming very tempting).

This all said, I still can’t wait until tomorrow night when we see Merideth work closely with her ex-boyfriend, whom she obviously still loves, to develop a new and unprecedented surgery to save the live of a supposedly terminally ill man with a large tumor in the middle of his brain, who will wake up only to realize he was “out of his mind” when he married his new wife (and provoked a bear cub)!