I don’t know about you, but the way last year flew by brings words like “sliding”, “careening” or “diving” to mind. Life has not felt super slow for quite a long time.

Sigh. And probably largely because of all the Adulting that has to happen. Gone are the days of running around in the garden with sticks creating worlds in our minds, or jumping on to our bikes and cycling to the local park. Gone are the days of homework and school sports matches and being bored and watching cartoons on TV.

This is real life now. There’s jobs and rent to pay and increasing petrol prices and that weird smoke coming out of the back of the car that I’m trying to ignore. There have been statues coming down, fees falling and an attempt at seeing our number in power do the same. That momentum seems like it will continue into the new year and so I might have some decisions to make.

WHOSE ENTERTAINMENT IS IT ANYWAY?

Can sport in and of itself be viewed as a positive or a negative thing? Can a movie, play or book be good or evil? Perhaps in some cases where something that is called “sport” is used as an excuse for butchering an animal or a human. Or if a book is overtly racist or sexist or blasphemous, although each of those things can probably be seen as subjective. But for the most part, entertainment seems to be a bit of a neutral thing.

As we head into a new year it always feels like a great time to do a bit of a life stock take and see what needs to be changed, removed completely and strengthened or built up. I invite you to join me for a moment in doing the same with entertainment and how you relate to it:

A healthy (or scary) exercise might be sitting down and trying to figure out a rough estimate on how many hours last year you spent…

(1) Watching TV series, movies, plays

(2) Watching sporting events live or on the TV

(3) Playing computer games, or in my case board and card games and

(4) Reading, blogging, writing, listening…

(5) On social media like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and…

(6) How much money did I spend on all of the above?

As you sit with the results of this activity, go through each one and ask, “Am I okay with that?” “Am I proud that I spent X amount of minutes, hours, days watching soap operas, following the football (including time spent on fantasy game playing) or levelling up my World of Warcraft character?” Plus, of course, the money question…

CHOOSE BETTER IN 2016

If you don’t stop for a moment and reflect on your entertainment choices for 2015, the chances are that you will simply repeat them and possibly do even worse in 2016. In my own country, South Africa, it feels like there is a lot of work to be done to build our country and a great deal of that can happen by us spending time together in entertainment, actually. It can be a good thing. Maybe for some of us it could involve being a little more creative in terms of who we watch with or play against or where we choose to follow our particular entertainment habits.

But I also imagine that for many of us we might wish that we could have a free do-over. Maybe in one of those areas, but possibly even in more. And the truth is you can’t, because the clock will continue to tick closer and closer to the next year and there is no going back.

But there is going forwards.

So choose this day how entertainment will work for you this year: As a distraction, as time out, as time spent with friends doing something you all love. Perhaps also put some boundaries in place and have an idea of the limits you want to impose on it – so that it is always your servant and is never given the opportunity of becoming your master.

Be entertained well in 2016.