The best thing I did last year was cancel my cable television subscription.
“Seriously? That’s the best thing you did in a whole year?“
Sure, that does sound a bit underwhelming when I say it like that. But for police officers and other first-responders, especially those raising kids, cancelling cable television is an enormously beneficial lifestyle change.
Here’s why you should cancel cable, too.
It’s Good for Your Health
“Frequent, repetitive viewing of traumatic images can come with adverse psychological consequences.”
Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto.
But you already knew that, right? It doesn’t take a university study to know that sitting comatose on the couch four hours per day getting fed a visual diet of envy, tragedy, outrage is bad for you.
Working as a police officer is rough enough on your mental health. Spending a shift wading in other people’s problems and then going home and spending your off-duty time further degrading what’s left of your sanity by watching television won’t help.
I used to watch a lot of news as a daily background routine. It was on in the morning, afternoon, and before I went to bed. It was also a constant source of stress and anxiety because news media focuses on sensationalist and negative stories in order to gain and keep your attention.
Cancelling cable television allowed me to finally break my news addiction and engage in more productive activities. I now spend more time with my kids, spend more time with my spouse, and go for longer walks with my dog. Not having cable is how I found time to write this article. Overall I’ve been in a better mood since cancelling cable.
Kids especially benefit when you cancel cable. It’s way easier to get them to go outside, play with their siblings, and engage in productive activities when there is nothing to watch on TV because the TV doesn’t even have service.
Even if you have streaming service and your four year old has his favorite show on, just yank the router’s power plug and suddenly the TV is gone. “Aw, the TV stopped working again? Bummer. Let’s go to the park.”
Works every time.
It’s Good for Your Wealth
If you complain that you aren’t paid enough or don’t have money to save for retirement, then cancelling cable and redirecting that money to your 457b or individual retirement account (IRA) should be your goal for today.
In 2018, the average American spent $107 per month on cable television. The median net worth of a 50 year old American was about $137,000. What does this mean?
The only thing a 21-year old rookie cop has to do to be wealthier than half of all Americans is cancel cable and contribute that money to their 457b or IRA.
Here’s another money-related incentive to quit cable. Are you tired of seeing sensationalist media stories about how bad cops are? Guess where the money comes from to pay the people who write those stories: you.
When you quit doing business with people that profit off of selling divisiveness, you keep your money and they go out of business. It’s a win-win for cops everywhere.
You’re Not Missing Anything
“Yeah, but I won’t get to see my shows.”
Cancelling cable is weird at first. A blank television just stares at you and you have no access to your shows. Right?
Not anymore. Get yourself aRoku stick or other streaming device and you can subscribe a la carte to whatever you want to watch.
It’s like crop rotation. One season you can subscribe to HBO and watch Game of Thrones and True Detective. The next season, cancel HBO, pick up an Amazon Prime subscription, and watch Jack Ryan. Then cancel everything and just watch whatever is free through the streaming device.
“Yeah, but if I don’t have cable news I won’t know what’s going on.”
Trust me, you aren’t missing any cable news worth seeing. What, you wanted to saturate yourself two years of Muller investigation news only to find there was nothing there? You want to hear talking heads deliver drive-by attacks on your profession before cutting to commercial breaks and inundating you with ads for products you don’t need?
Cable news isn’t news; It’s stories that are first sensationalized, then spun through political filters, and then stripped down into useless 30-second segments and misleading soundbites. You’re getting a triple-whammy of garbage, and there is no reason to pay money to see it.
Conclusion
Cops have enough to worry about at work. The last thing they need is to pay for a cable television service that pipes negativity into their house and degrades their health. If you still need to see your favorite shows, switch to a streaming service and only pay for what you need.
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