When I mentioned the 21 hours to a friend recently, he cleared his throat and crowed, “Matt, it’s way worse than you think. It’s closer to five hours a day.”
Nah, couldn’t be. So I investigated further, and to my astonishment, my friend was verifiably correct.
But wait, I found the statistics to be way worse than he stated as well.
In an article published by the New York Daily News, March 5, 2014, the average American watches MORE than five hours of television per day.
Here was the breakdown by age group:
Ages – Time spent watching tee-vee
2-11: 24 hours, 16 minutes
12-17: 20 hours, 41 minutes
18-24: 22 hours, 27 minutes
25-34: 27 hours, 36 minutes
35-49: 33 hours, 40 minutes
50-64: 43 hours, 56 minutes
65 plus: 50 hours, 34 minutes
As you peer at the numbers shown above, you can now readily understand why so many people “don’t have time” for you or anything else. They are truly “busy.”
Over the past 479 days, here’s the short list of activities I found time for, mostly due to not watching television:
* Increased Daily Walking to a minimum of 5 miles
* Relearned how to write cursive and do so in a daily journal
* Learned to write cursive ambidextrously as well as in mirror image
* Worked on memorizing the Powers of 2 and the digits of Pi
* Learned to bowl left-handed as part of my ambidexterity training – and am happy to report that this experiment in going exceptionally well. Last night I bowled a 203 left-handed. My best right-handed score is 193. This proves that the non-dominant side of the body, when trained, can and often does exceed the dominant side.
* Delved much deeper into martial arts, in particular Taiji Quan. More specifically, I’ve made two trips to Chen Village in China to immerse myself in the daily training and culture.
* Greatly improved my ability to speak Chinese.
* Started growing and cultivating bonsai trees. Watching nature grow before your eyes helps you see behind the mysteries of life in much greater detail.
* Improved hand-eye coordination and reaction speed by using various hammers and clubs.
* All of the above, and much more, changed my metabolism, made me younger, quickened my mind – and as unbelievable as this may sound, caused me to grow. My hands are now much larger and thicker than they have ever been.
Again, this is the short list, but I think you can easily comprehend the implications and positive ramifications of shunning time before the tee-vee.
Whether you choose to do similarly is not my business, but if you do want to follow along, I beleive you’ll enjoy the rewards of doing so far beyond what you can currently fathom.
See It. Do It. Have It.
Matt Furey
P.S. There’s less than 12 hours to enroll in my seminar at the current Early Eagle amount. If you want to write books, travel the world and live life from the inside-out, then jump aboard today.
