How Netflix Drained My Life?

I used to be a Netflix addict. Every evening after work, I used to catch up with latest episodes of "Doctor Who", "Dexter", "Eureka" etc. I consistently spend 2-3 hours a day watching TV shows. Weekend is a whole different story! As a creature of habit, I believe I had been doing these over a year. But a week ago I made a small calculation that made me reconsider this daily habit.

Here is my math:

If I spend 3 hours day watching television shows for a year, I would spend (365 X 3) = 1095 hours. Divide 1096 hours by 24, you will get around 45 whole days in a year. So, I am spending 12% of my year watching a high definition plasma tv which will add zero value to my life.  (My definition of value is anything that makes me better, richer and stronger. Yours might be different.)

Let's say I keep watching 3 hours per day for the next 20 years of my life (I am not even mentioning any special occasions), then I would spend (20 X 45) = 900 days or 2.5 years of my life watching story of actors who don't care about me.

Conclusion:

To me that's a lot of time spend. I even finished my college degree within 3 years. Think about how much I can accomplish if I spend time that adds value to those 2.5 years!

Yes, I know I should have time for more fun and nowadays, I do watch something entertaining occasionally. That's really okay! But I believe it's kind of crazy to have it as a daily habit which you carry on for the rest of your life. I would rather be moderate, then make it part of my daily habit!

Parents Vs. Computer Programmers

As a computer programmer, I found similarities between human habits and software. I develop softwares and make them act or interpret stuff in a certain way. In the same way, humans are programmed in their early childhood to also behave in certain way by their parents/caretakers.  Parents program their children to develop resourceful habits (which I also call softwares) such as brushing teeth, paying respect to elders, dinner etiquette, and studying new concepts. Parents could also program children to ingrain destructive habits, such as, making excuses, procrastination, approval seeking, avoiding confrontation etc. Some of those habits children  carry on for the rest of their lives.

This morning I started to wonder if parents are similar to programmers? In my field, a good programmer  completes his project within deadline, comply with coding convention, write intelligent logic and less faulty softwares, and unit tests his code. On the other hand, parents probably also see raising their children as a large project which has deadlines (i.e. setting them free at certain age when they are capable to take care of themselves). Parents also comply social conventional rules (i.e. eating healthy foods, paying respect, and going to school) and raise their children to be the best they can. There are always times parents could spoil their children with undesirable habits (even if they don't mean to).

I sometimes wonder how nice it would be if my parents program me certain habits; and prevent me to establish faulty ones. But the cool thing about humans is that they are self aware and have ability to be flexible. So, even if someone might be a result of bad programming doesn't mean he cannot REPROGRAM himself. That's really a nice thing about being a human!