"Admitted we were powerless over Netflix, and our lives had become unmanageable"...

There is a great proportional equation in my life: The more fearful I am, the more Netflix I watch.  Perhaps you have a similar equation?

As Summer School draws to a close -- both my morning job teaching it and my evenings learning from it -- I begin to feel more anxious.  I begin to poke around job sites, as half-heartedly as I have been for weeks since this summer school job began, but more fretfully as the job nears completion… tomorrow.

As I look at teacher jobs, I am reminded that, honestly, I feel out of my depth to put together full-time lesson plans, learning arcs, and curricula.  Hence my desire to earn a teaching credential, aka more schooling, aka not til next Fall if that happens.  There’s plenty of “go get ‘em” attitude in me that says, “Meh, who needs it, you’ve taught, you’ll be fiiine.”  But there’s a great dose of reality that reminds me that as someone who's never taught full-time it’s not fair to me or my students to simply “wing it,” to throw something together -- and to throw myself into the deep end.

And it’s unclear to me which of these voices is more valid.  So, I poke half-heartedly.

In the meantime, as I have come home these 6 weeks from my morning gig teaching a creative writing elective to middle schoolers (which, yes, I love more than any job I’ve had), I have a few hours before my evening physics class at a nearby city college.  In those hours, I could: study for the physics final, which is this evening; I could look for work; I could reach out for help; I could learn my monologue for Sunday’s audition; or… I could watch Netflix.

Oh!, you great and terrible time-suck!

And cowing under the realization that I am unable to moderate my time spent … wasted … whiled … and lost in front of the pixelated numbness, last week I began to try to find ways to moderate.

Oh, it’s not like I haven’t tried to reign myself in before.  There’s my “Anything more than two hours is avoidance and isolation” awareness.  There’s the “Never after 10pm” rule.  There’s the “Just one more episode” mantra that somehow repeats unto the depths of my pockets of time.

And so, I decided, Enough!  I looked into suspending my account (at least until I’ve found a job), but you can’t do that.  I even enacted parental controls to restrict my access to the website, even by a few steps, but instead I managed to prevent myself from even accessing my email.  I found a way around those restrictions (since I still can’t figure out how to undo them), and Lo! found myself right back in front of the “Continue Watching” button.

Finally, with a deep mood of disgust, regret, and resignation, last week I cancelled my Netflix account.

And began rereading all the Harry Potter books.