Growing up, I’ve been schooled in the Catholic tradition of Lent. According to Wikipedia, most Christians spend this time getting ready for Easter Sunday. This means that a lot of people spend their time reflecting on their lives through penance, prayer, and denial of vices.

My memory of Sunday school teachings is shoddy at best, but the one thing that I do remember is that Lent is supposed to symbolize the 40 days that Jesus spent in the desert battling his demons.  In our modern-day representation, Lent becomes the time that most Christians give up something that is bad for them, or something that they love, in order to atone for our sins.

The whole point of writing this article was that in honor of Lent, I have decided to give up watching television and videos on YouTube. For six weeks, until Easter Sunday on April 21, 2019, I vow not to watch anything on any tube.

Yikes.

It is going to be a very looooooooooooooooong Lenten season this year.

I’ve put it on here on the blog to keep myself accountable and not to break the promise I’ve made to myself. I am planning on using the extra time to work on the things that I set out to accomplish for this year. Mostly, I am hoping that the time I have gained by not watching TV or YouTube will increase my productivity.

It’s only been a week, but I haven’t seen any marked differences, though. I don’t normally watch TV in general. I don’t watch popular American shows because I don’t have Netflix, Hulu, or any other of those streaming sites. I do, however, watch a lot of Japanese TV. It is weird, interesting, fascinating, funny–and over all a time suck. Even still, I don’t watch it every day. I usually tape the shows I am interested in and watch them whenever I have time, so it is not as addicting as it is.

YouTube, on the other hand, is more dangerous. Because I am on my computer most of the time, the easy access of videos on the site is more difficult to resist. After all, with one quick click of a button, I can watch something that is interesting or funny. There also have been times when I’ve wasted an entire day just clicking on to the next video. It is so easy to go down the rabbit hole.

I’m glad that I am aware that this is one of my vices. I know in my heart that this habit of watching videos keeps me from being more productive and successful in real life. I hope that by giving up watching TV and YouTube mindlessly (for the next six weeks, at least), I will be able to focus my attention on the projects that I’ve been wanting to work on for the past few months. I would like to finally work on the book I’ve been wanting to write. I also want to really up my writing skills and fully invest in becoming a free-lance writer.

So far, so good. Knowing that I have freed up some extra time has fired up my inner burners. I am feeling motivated and eager to get started on all the work that needs to be done.

I open up my computer, crack my knuckles so I can write.

However, every time I open up a new tab on the browser, it’s getting more and more difficult not to type YouTube in the search bar.

Must resist YouTube… for the next five more weeks.

Ugh.