“
I’m a modern man, a man for the millennium. Digital and smoke free. A diversified multi-cultural, post-modern deconstruction that is anatomically and ecologically incorrect. I’ve been up linked and downloaded, I’ve been inputted and outsourced, I know the upside of downsizing, I know the downside of upgrading. I’m a high-tech low-life. A cutting edge, state-of-the-art bi-coastal multi-tasker and I can give you a gigabyte in a nanosecond!
I’m new wave, but I’m old school and my inner child is outward bound. I’m a hot-wired, heat seeking, warm-hearted cool customer, voice activated and bio-degradable. I interface with my database, my database is in cyberspace, so I’m interactive, I’m hyperactive and from time to time I’m radioactive.
Behind the eight ball, ahead of the curve, ridin the wave, dodgin the bullet and pushin the envelope. I’m on-point, on-task, on-message and off drugs. I’ve got no need for coke and speed. I've got no urge to binge and purge. I’m in-the-moment, on-the-edge, over-the-top and under-the-radar. A high-concept, low-profile, medium-range ballistic missionary. A street-wise smart bomb. A top-gun bottom feeder. I wear power ties, I tell power lies, I take power naps and run victory laps. I’m a totally ongoing big-foot, slam-dunk, rainmaker with a pro-active outreach. A raging workaholic. A working rageaholic. Out of rehab and in denial!
I’ve got a personal trainer, a personal shopper, a personal assistant and a personal agenda. You can’t shut me up. You can’t dumb me down because I’m tireless and I’m wireless, I’m an alpha male on beta-blockers.
I’m a non-believer and an over-achiever, laid-back but fashion-forward. Up-front, down-home, low-rent, high-maintenance. Super-sized, long-lasting, high-definition, fast-acting, oven-ready and built-to-last! I’m a hands-on, foot-loose, knee-jerk head case pretty maturely post-traumatic and I’ve got a love-child that sends me hate mail.
But, I’m feeling, I’m caring, I’m healing, I’m sharing-- a supportive, bonding, nurturing primary care-giver. My output is down, but my income is up. I took a short position on the long bond and my revenue stream has its own cash-flow. I read junk mail, I eat junk food, I buy junk bonds and I watch trash sports! I’m gender specific, capital intensive, user-friendly and lactose intolerant.
I like rough sex. I like tough love. I use the “F” word in my emails and the software on my hard-drive is hardcore--no soft porn.
I bought a microwave at a mini-mall; I bought a mini-van at a mega-store. I eat fast-food in the slow lane. I’m toll-free, bite-sized, ready-to-wear and I come in all sizes. A fully-equipped, factory-authorized, hospital-tested, clinically-proven, scientifically- formulated medical miracle. I’ve been pre-wash, pre-cooked, pre-heated, pre-screened, pre-approved, pre-packaged, post-dated, freeze-dried, double-wrapped, vacuum-packed and, I have an unlimited broadband capacity.
I’m a rude dude, but I’m the real deal. Lean and mean! Cocked, locked and ready-to-rock. Rough, tough and hard to bluff. I take it slow, I go with the flow, I ride with the tide. I’ve got glide in my stride. Drivin and movin, sailin and spinin, jiving and groovin, wailin and winnin. I don’t snooze, so I don’t lose. I keep the pedal to the metal and the rubber on the road. I party hearty and lunch time is crunch time. I’m hangin in, there ain’t no doubt and I’m hangin tough, over and out!
”
”
George Carlin
“
And in the flush of the first few days of joy I confidently tell myself (not expecting what I'll do in three weeks only) 'no more dissipation, it's time for me to quietly watch the world and even enjoy it, first in woods like these, then just calmly walk and talk among people of the world, no booze, no drugs, no binges, no bouts with beatniks and drunks and junkies and everybody, no more I ask myself the question O why is God torturing me, that's it, be a loner, travel, talk to waiters, walk around, no more self-imposed agony...it's time to think and watch and keep concentrated on the fact that after all this whole surface of the world as we know it now will be covered with the silt of a billion years in time...Yay, for this, more aloneness
”
”
Jack Kerouac (Big Sur)
“
We’re all running from pain. Some of us take pills. Some of us couch surf while binge-watching Netflix. Some of us read romance novels. We’ll do almost anything to distract ourselves from ourselves. Yet all this trying to insulate ourselves from pain seems only to have made our pain worse.
”
”
Anna Lembke (Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence)
“
To encapsulate the notion of Mardi Gras as nothing more than a big drunk is to take the simple and stupid way out, and I, for one, am getting tired of staying stuck on simple and stupid.
Mardi Gras is not a parade. Mardi Gras is not girls flashing on French Quarter balconies. Mardi Gras is not an alcoholic binge.
Mardi Gras is bars and restaurants changing out all the CD's in their jukeboxes to Professor Longhair and the Neville Brothers, and it is annual front-porch crawfish boils hours before the parades so your stomach and attitude reach a state of grace, and it is returning to the same street corner, year after year, and standing next to the same people, year after year--people whose names you may or may not even know but you've watched their kids grow up in this public tableau and when they're not there, you wonder: Where are those guys this year?
It is dressing your dog in a stupid costume and cheering when the marching bands go crazy and clapping and saluting the military bands when they crisply snap to.
Now that part, more than ever.
It's mad piano professors converging on our city from all over the world and banging the 88's until dawn and laughing at the hairy-shouldered men in dresses too tight and stalking the Indians under Claiborne overpass and thrilling the years you find them and lamenting the years you don't and promising yourself you will next year.
It's wearing frightful color combination in public and rolling your eyes at the guy in your office who--like clockwork, year after year--denies that he got the baby in the king cake and now someone else has to pony up the ten bucks for the next one.
Mardi Gras is the love of life. It is the harmonic convergence of our food, our music, our creativity, our eccentricity, our neighborhoods, and our joy of living. All at once.
”
”
Chris Rose (1 Dead in Attic: Post-Katrina Stories)
“
Surely there must be something we can do to combat aging’s normal but corrosive affects on memory performance. These declines in memory creation, retrieval, and processing speed aren’t all inevitable, are they? You’re not gonna like this, but appears the answer is ultimately yes. If you eat a daily diet of doughnuts, only go for a run if someone is chasing you, regularly sacrifice sleep by binge watching entire seasons of the latest show on Netflix until 3 AM, and are chronically stressed, you’ll most definitely accelerate the ageing of your memory.
”
”
Lisa Genova (Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting)
“
. Binge watch. Binge drink. Binge eat. Oblivion. I know this numbness because it is my life.
”
”
Kate Tempest (On Connection)
“
Craig: 'When I used to drink, I binge drank…and I’m kind of like that with Doctor Who. I save up a lot of it on the DVR and then like I get my big scarf on and my hat and I stay at home and just watch them.'
Neil Gaiman: 'You watch them, you wake up in the morning hating yourself and swearing to never do it again.'
Craig: 'It’s like you know me, man.
”
”
Craig Ferguson
“
I have found that the best way to take your mind off something is to binge-watch TV shows.
”
”
Oyinkan Braithwaite (My Sister, the Serial Killer)
“
LYB NBC—which means “love ya, babe; nuts, back & critters”—the first half being pretty self-explanatory. Less obviously, “nuts, back, and critters” means watch out for crazy people, watch your back because you can’t trust anyone, and don’t run over any animals.
”
”
Tyler Oakley (Binge)
“
Her superpower is finding joy in small moments: a hike with her dog, a pretty sunset, a new plant flowering, a show to binge watch. She has found purpose and meaning in the things she can control, and finds that healing, acceptance, and grief are a daily calibration.
”
”
Ramani Durvasula (It's Not You: Identifying and Healing from Narcissistic People)
“
As much as I’d hated the experience, the dress was beautiful and worth it—so beautiful, in fact, that you’d want to randomly take it out of your closet and wear it in your home while binge-watching The Office.
”
”
Ella Maise (Marriage for One)
“
Here’s the thing about cults: I see them everywhere.
If you’re deep into the Kardashians, you’re in a cult. If you watch your favorite TV show and go online and you’re in chat rooms with everybody else who’s obsessed with that show and you’re breaking it down episode by episode, you’re in a cult. If you’re bingeing, scrolling, absorbing from one news source more than any other, especially if it happens to be fair and balanced, you are in a cult. You’re living your life through other people.
”
”
Rose McGowan (Brave)
“
. “Right . . . here’s what we’ll do: I’ll get the kids. You take your shower. After homework and playtime, I’ll challenge them to shots until they pass out. Then we’ll eat the rest of their Halloween candy while binge-watching Game of Thrones.
”
”
Penny Reid (Happily Ever Ninja (Knitting in the City, #5))
“
I binge-watched every season of Seinfeld when I was fifteen and came out of it believing that Jerry was right—there’s something annoying about every single human on this planet.
”
”
Colleen Hoover (Layla)
“
Keelan looked to Knox. “I have the sudden urge to binge watch all the Superman movies.
”
”
Ashley N. Rostek (Find Me (WITSEC, #1))
“
Lottie, trust me when I say you’re not imposing. I want you in my house, in my room, in my bed. I want you on my couch, holding my hand while watching a show you’ve forced me to reluctantly binge. I want you in my pool, skinny-dipping like you enjoy so much. I want you on my roof, feeling the rain bounce off you during a storm. I want you at my dining room table, eating dinner next to me, giving me a hard time for whatever reason you come up with that day.” He lifts my knuckles to his lips and places a soft kiss to them. “I want you, okay?
”
”
Meghan Quinn (A Not So Meet Cute (Cane Brothers, #1))
“
Self-driving cars are so lonely. Are you really going to use all that extra commute time to binge-watch Netflix? Why not hire me to sit next to you and whistle all your favorite tunes?
”
”
Jarod Kintz (There are Two Typos of People in This World: Those Who Can Edit and Those Who Can't)
“
This is one of the harshest after effects of the pandemic
that I am witnessing some
and experiencing some,
a diminished ability to deal with resistance,
and so
a willingness to stay in one place for too long,
shut off from the outside world,
nose in phone or binge-watching
some show
when once upon a time
we used to have to wait a week for the next installment
and discussed it with colleagues over water coolers
and over landlines with friends.
We need colleagues.
We need friends.
”
”
Shellen Lubin
“
Do an overwhelming number of respected scientists believe that human actions are changing the Earth's climate? Yes. OK, that being the case, let's undermine that by finding and funding those few contrarians who believe otherwise. Promote their message widely and it will accumulate in the mental environment, just as toxic mercury accumulates in a biological ecosystem. Once enough of the toxin has been dispersed, the balance of public understanding will shift. Fund a low level campaign to suggest any threat to the car is an attack on personal freedoms. Create a "grassroots" group to defend the right to drive. Portray anticar activists as prudes who long for the days of the horse and buggy. Then sit back, watch the infotoxins spread - and get ready to sell bigger, better cars for years to come.
”
”
Kalle Lasn (Culture Jam: How to Reverse America's Suicidal Consumer Binge - and Why We Must)
“
On being conscious of being a writer:
As soon as one is aware of being “somebody,” to be watched and listened to with extra interest, input ceases, and the performer goes blind and deaf in his overanimation. [...] Most of the best fiction is written out of early impressions, taken in before the writer became conscious of himself as a writer. The best seeing is done by the hunted and the hunter, the vulnerable and the hungry; the “successful” writer acquires a film over his eyes. His eyes get fat. Self-importance is a thickened, occluding form of self-consciousness. The binge, the fling, the trip – all attempt to shake the film and get back under the dinning-room table, with a child’s beautifully clear eyes.
”
”
John Updike (Self-Consciousness)
“
The behaviors we do in rapid succession—from gambling to overeating to overbuying to binge-watching to binge drinking and so much more—are powered by a “scarcity loop.” It has three parts. Opportunity—> Unpredictable Rewards—> Quick Repeatability
”
”
Michael Easter (Scarcity Brain: Fix Your Craving Mindset and Rewire Your Habits to Thrive with Enough)
“
And this affects us. Consider, immediately after the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, researchers from the University of California, Irvine, investigated two groups. The first group was made up of people who watched six or more hours of televised bombing coverage. The second group was people who actually ran in the 2013 Boston Marathon. The finding: The first group, the bombing news bingers, were more likely to develop PTSD and other mental health issues. That’s worth restating: people who binge-watched bombing news on TV from the comfort of home had more psychological trauma than people who were actually bombed.
”
”
Michael Easter (Scarcity Brain: Fix Your Craving Mindset and Rewire Your Habits to Thrive with Enough)
“
You can make a drug—a way to anesthetize yourself—out of anything: working out, binge-watching TV, working, having sex, shopping, volunteering, cleaning, dieting. Any of those things can keep you from feeling pain for a while—that’s what drugs do. And, used like a drug, over time, shopping or TV or work or whatever will make you less and less able to connect to the things that matter, like your own heart and the people you love. That’s another thing drugs do: they isolate you.
”
”
Shauna Niequist (Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living)
“
The late nights binge-watching The X-Files on the couch they picked out together, the early mornings making toast while they’re still too tired to speak, the kids who will earn their first scars in the backyard and badly practice instruments at inconvenient times, and the way their favorite candle’s scent will gradually infuse the walls so that every time they come back from a trip, exhausted, and dump their bags inside the door, they’ll smell that they’re where they belong. All those moments throughout the days, weeks, months that don’t get marked on calendars with hand-drawn stars or little stickers. Those are the moments that make a life.
”
”
Emily Henry (Funny Story)
“
Whatever you watch, whatever you binge, whatever you focus your eyes and your mind on, your heart will start seeking more of the same.
”
”
Jonathan "JP" Pokluda (Outdated: Find Love That Lasts When Dating Has Changed)
“
The situation of the Kristang reminded me of an old TV show my sister found and binge-watched; you needed a spreadsheet to keep track of the characters, and everyone dies anyway.
”
”
Craig Alanson (Black Ops (Expeditionary Force, #4))
“
It’s like going into the ring against Ali when all I’ve done to train is eat doughnuts and binge-watch Rocky.
”
”
Jody Gehrman (The Girls Weekend)
“
Reading history is like binge-watching the highlight reels from past seasons of current affairs.
”
”
Visakan Veerasamy
“
The world couldn’t have been hungrier for Anthology, with a ten-hour documentary and three huge-selling volumes of outtakes, turning into a joyous global celebration. The Anthology double-CD packages might have been more purchased than played (everybody back then bought more music than they had time to listen to). They included two new songs, Lennon tape fragments that the others finished: “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love.” The flaw was Jeff Lynne’s production—George Martin wasn’t invited, because Harrison flatly refused to work with him. It’s ironic that when you watch Anthology, the only music that sounds dated is from 1995. But no matter how blasphemous the idea seemed, both songs were disarmingly beautiful, as was the documentary, to the point where you could drop in on any random hour (or binge all ten) and enjoy. One of the wisest decisions of Anthology was
”
”
Rob Sheffield (Dreaming the Beatles: The Love Story of One Band and the Whole World)
“
If you’ve ever binge-watched a season or two of a TV show on Netflix when you should be studying, or finishing an assignment, or going to sleep, you know how an appealing distraction can trigger a self-defeating choice.
”
”
Marshall Goldsmith (Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts--Becoming the Person You Want to Be)
“
This may explain the odd space that the climate crisis occupies in the public imagination, even among those of us who are actively terrified of climate collapse. One minute we’re sharing articles about the insect apocalypse and viral videos of walruses falling off cliffs because sea ice loss has destroyed their habitat, and the next, we’re online shopping and willfully turning our minds into Swiss cheese by scrolling through Twitter or Instagram. Or else we’re binge-watching Netflix shows about the zombie apocalypse that turn our terrors into entertainment, while tacitly confirming that the future ends in collapse anyway, so why bother trying to stop the inevitable? It also might explain the way serious people can simultaneously grasp how close we are to an irreversible tipping point and still regard the only people who are calling for this to be treated as an emergency as unserious and unrealistic.
”
”
Naomi Klein (On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal)
“
We are supposed to consume alcohol and enjoy it, but we're not supposed to become alcoholics. Imagine if this were the same with cocaine. Imagine we grew up watching our parents snort lines at dinner, celebrations, sporting events, brunches, and funerals. We'd sometimes (or often) see our parents coked out of our minds the way we sometimes (or often) see them drunk. We'd witness them coming down after a cocaine binge the way we see them recovering from a hangover. Kiosks at Disneyland would see it so our parents could make it through a day of fun, our mom's book club would be one big blow-fest and instead of "mommy juice" it would be called "mommy powder" There'd be coke-tasting parties in Napa and cocaine cellars in fancy people's homes, and everyone we know (including our pastors, nurses, teachers, coaches, bosses) would snort it. The message we'd pick up as kids could be Cocaine is great, and one day you'll get to try it, too! Just don't become addicted to it or take it too far. Try it; use it responsibly. Don't become a cocaine-oholic though. Now, I'm sure you're thinking. That's insane, everyone knows cocaine is far more addicting than alcohol and far more dangerous. Except, it's not...The point is not that alcohol is worse than cocaine. The point is that we have a really clear understanding that cocaine is toxic and addictive. We know there's no safe amount of it, no such thing as "moderate" cocaine use; we know it can hook us and rob us of everything we care about...We know we are better off not tangling with it at all.
”
”
Holly Whitaker (Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol)
“
Celebrity, even the modest sort that comes to writers, is an unhelpful exercise in self-consciousness. Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face. As soon as one is aware of being ‘somebody,’ to be watched and listened to with extra interest, input ceases, and the performer goes blind and deaf in his over animation. One can either see or be seen. Most of the best fiction is written out of early impressions, taken in before the writer became conscious of himself as a writer. The best seeing is done by the hunted and the hunter, the vulnerable and the hungry; the ‘successful’ writer acquires a film over his eyes. His eyes get fat. Self-importance is a thickened, occluding form of self-consciousness. The binge, the fling, the trip — all attempt to shake the film and get back under the dining room table, with a child's beautifully clear eyes.
”
”
John Updike (Self-Consciousness)
“
In my hundreds of hours of research, I've often paused to question the worth of deep dives like this, and have never been able to convincingly justify my involvement in the lives of these people I've never met, ones who might not even exist. Is it nothing but a folk version of reality television? Or has the evolutionary drive to seek social instruction by observing and interpreting the behavior of others hypertrophied beyond usefulness, such that now, in our binges of drama, to watch ourselves watch someone else watch us has become an end in itself? An end without end?
”
”
Tony Tulathimutte (Rejection)
“
The joke was on him—I wanted to be invisible. It was exhausting when an introvert was befriended by an extrovert. They went out of their way to make you feel included when all you really wanted to do was be invisible, binge-watch some television, and read some books with a dog or cat companion.
”
”
Brittainy C. Cherry (Northern Stars (The Compass, #4))
“
Perhaps love in the digital age is more like Netflix binge-watching: we enjoy bursts of fantasy, and then move on to something else when it’s done. Like browsing for a new series on Netflix, if the relationship doesn’t fit perfectly, you can trade it in for something new with the click of a button or a swipe on your phone.
”
”
Shannon Mullen (See What Flowers)
“
Yep! I was twenty-six years old and an associate beauty editor at Lucky, one of the top fashion magazines in America, and that’s all that most people knew about me. But beneath the surface, I was full of secrets: I was an addict, for one. A pillhead! I was also an alcoholic-in-training who drank warm Veuve Clicquot after work, alone in my boss’s office with the door closed; a conniving uptown doctor shopper who haunted twenty-four-hour pharmacies while my coworkers were at home watching True Blood in bed with their boyfriends; a salami-and-provolone-puking bulimic who spent a hundred dollars a day on binge foods when things got bad (and they got bad often); a weepy, wobbly hallucination-prone insomniac who jumped six feet in the air à la LeBron James and gobbled Valium every time a floorboard squeaked in her apartment; a tweaky self-mutilator who sat in front of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, digging gory abscesses into her bikini line with Tweezerman Satin Edge Needle Nose Tweezers;
”
”
Cat Marnell (How to Murder Your Life)
“
I sat at home on Friday nights and made Spotify playlists that reflected my mood. I laid around on Saturday evenings and binged watched Netflix until half past two. I sat at home and thought about all the things that I wanted to be doing. But my homebody self with social anxiety preferred to live vicariously through the people in those movies.
”
”
Jennae Cecelia (Losing Myself Brought Me Here)
“
Charlie’s sister had spent the last few years bingeing Reddit threads, watching videos, and chatting with other gloamist hopefuls until dawn. But lately things had gotten worse. Posey had started staying up for days at a stretch and not leaving the house for weeks. Despair seemed to be chasing her heels as her shadow refused to quicken. She’d gone so deep down the rabbit hole that Charlie worried it had become an oubliette.
”
”
Holly Black (Book of Night (Book of Night, #1))
“
Here’s the thing about humans. We’ll almost always throw aside common sense in favor of instant gratification. I knew eating pizza every week wasn’t healthy, but I still did it. I knew I should write every morning before binge-watching Netflix, but I didn’t. And I knew getting involved with Kai was the worst idea in the history of bad ideas, but I’d been drowning alone for years and being with him was the only time I could breathe.
”
”
Ana Huang (King of Pride (Kings of Sin, #2))
“
In the middle of a busy workday, or after a particularly trying morning of childcare, it’s tempting to crave the release of having nothing to do—whole blocks of time with no schedule, no expectations, and no activity beyond whatever seems to catch your attention in the moment. These decompression sessions have their place, but their rewards are muted, as they tend to devolve toward low-quality activities like mindless phone swiping and half-hearted binge-watching.
”
”
Cal Newport (Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World)
“
This book is dedicated to everyone who has ever loved a story so much they could quote it.
There's nothing in the world quite like being part of a fandom. Never let anyone shame you for it. Read those books. Watch those movies. Binge those TV shows. Love those characters. Admire those celebrities. Write that fan-fiction. Draw that fan art. Go to those conventions. Sing that (on-hiatus, totally-not-broken-up) boy band at the top or your lungs. Do what makes you happy.
”
”
J.M. Darhower (Ghosted)
“
Maybe you can imagine this in your own life. We no longer look at the sun but at our phones to see what kind of time has passed. We don't look out of our cells but at our cell, flipping to a social media stream and scrolling through what our friends are doing. While we scroll, we develop a resentment that our lives are less fun and fulfilling than the lives of our friends.
The here and now, the people who are around and present, pale in front of the manicured and curated versions of another person's life. We begin to wonder, like Evagrius, if we have lost the love of our friends, and we begin to believe that there is "none to comfort" us.
So we fill our evenings with overeating, because it feels comforting, or binge-watching our favorite show, because we are so tired that we just need to "relax." We split our attention between the screen of the television and the screen of our phones. Indeed, one of the most effective ways to avoid the gnawing questions of meaning is by staying busy enough to avoid them. A constant flow of information and distraction turns the mind and the heart away from the abyss of asking why. Why do we worry about tomorrow? Why do we toil and reap? What is the treasure of great price that all our lives are working toward?
When we do pause between activities, we try to fill the void. We forget that we are more than our work or the things that we produce. Our busyness represents a profound loss of freedom, and one that occurs through a gradual winnowing away of what it means to be human. We replace that it means to be a person with a shallowness of activity
”
”
Timothy McMahan King (Addiction Nation: What the Opioid Crisis Reveals about Us)
“
In the olden days, if you liked a programme on the telly, it was an event. You watched it, then you waited until it was back on the following week, and you watched it again. Maybe you taped it on the video recorder, if you could figure it out. Whatever. There was an element of patience involved. A degree of bloody restraint.” Ben shook his head. His mouth was pulled up like he’d tasted something unpleasant. “Now, it’s all there on demand. It’s all now, now, now. People binge. I mean, what was wrong with just watching something? Why do folk have to binge
”
”
J.D. Kirk (The Big Man Upstairs (DCI Logan Crime Thrillers, #7))
“
Whenever he finds himself at a social occasion that brings him into contact with law enforcement officials, Saenz tentatively trots out his theory. It is quickly withdrawn when some police general smiles patronizingly and says, “You’ve been watching too many foreign movies, Father Saenz; there are no serial killers in the Philippines.” The reasons offered simultaneously amuse and anger Saenz. “Our neighborhoods are too congested, our neighbors too nosy, our families too tightly knit for secrets to be kept and allowed to fester. We have too many ways to blow off steam—the nightclub, the karaoke bar, the after-work drinking binges with our fun-loving barkada. We’re too Catholic, too God-fearing, too fearful of scandal.
”
”
F.H. Batacan (Smaller and Smaller Circles)
“
Temptation bundling entails allowing yourself to engage in a guilty pleasure (such as binge-watching TV) only when pursuing a virtuous or valuable activity that you tend to dread (such as exercise). Temptation bundling solves two problems at once. It can help reduce overindulgence in temptations and increase time spent on activities that serve your long-term goals. Gamification is another way to make goal pursuit instantly gratifying. It involves making something that isn’t a game feel more engaging and less monotonous by adding gamelike features such as symbolic rewards, a sense of competition, and leaderboards. Gamification works when players “buy in” to the game. It can backfire if players feel the game is being imposed on them.
”
”
Katy Milkman (How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be)
“
As the philosopher and Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius said, “The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts.” As true today as in Roman times. The state of your mind, body, and spirit is the direct result of all the decisions you’ve made in your life up until this moment. Physical health, cognitive performance, happiness, and well-being—these are driven almost entirely by our beliefs and behaviors. Day after day, choosing to exercise or watch Netflix, pull an all-nighter or get some sleep, eat clean or binge on mint chocolate-chip ice cream—all these decisions create our days, and our days create our lives as a whole. Each of us faces unique physical and mental challenges, but no matter what hand you’ve been dealt, your mindset makes a massive difference.
”
”
Chase Jarvis (Creative Calling: Establish a Daily Practice, Infuse Your World with Meaning, and Succeed in Work + Life)
“
Primer of Love [Lesson 7]
"He disrespected the Bing."
~ Tony Soprano, Episode 34
Lesson 7)Don't diss'em or let'em diss you.
We're back on Brooklyn's streets (or Newark) on this one. It's all about respect - show none and you get whacked. None of that 'alpha' shit flies here - you're equals and command equal respect. She watches the kids, you cart the garbage. The kids wear her down all day; the cops break your chops about a missing WalMart tractor trailer with 100,000 pair of Levi jeans 'somebody' jacked on the Jersey Turnpike. You twos gotta' to vent your daily shit to each other.Let it all out, but be careful not to anything you may regret or prepare to sleep with a Glock under your pillow for the rest of your live. Insist you be totally naked when having sex to make sure nobody's wearing a wire. Capisce!
”
”
Beryl Dov
“
The late nights binge-watching The X-Files on the couch they picked out together, the early mornings making toast while they're still too tired to speak, the kids who will earn their first scars in the backyard and badly practice instruments at inconvenient times, and the way their favorite candle's scent will gradually infuse the walls so that every time they come back from a trip, exhausted, and dump their bags inside the door, they'll smell that they're where they belong.
All those moments throughout the days, weeks, months that don't get marked on calendars with hand-drawn stars or little stickers.
Those are the moments that make a life.
Not grand gestures, but mundane details that, over time, accumulate until you have a home, instead of a house.
The things that matter.
The things I can't stop longing for.
There's only one place that feeling exists for me, only one person with whom I belong.
”
”
Emily Henry (Funny Story)
“
How is it, then, that Infinite Jest still feels so transcendently, electrically alive? Theory one: as a novel about an “entertainment” weaponized to enslave and destroy all who look upon it, Infinite Jest is the first great Internet novel. Yes, William Gibson and Neal Stephenson may have gotten there first with Neuromancer and Snow Crash, whose Matrix and Metaverse, respectively, more accurately surmised what the Internet would look and feel like. (Wallace, among other things, failed to anticipate the break from cartridge- and disc-based entertainment.) But Infinite Jest warned against the insidious virality of popular entertainment long before anyone but the most Delphic philosophers of technology. Sharing videos, binge-watching Netflix, the resultant neuro-pudding at the end of an epic gaming marathon, the perverse seduction of recording and devouring our most ordinary human thoughts on Facebook and Instagram—Wallace somehow knew all this was coming, and it gave him (as the man himself might have put it) the howling fantods.
”
”
David Foster Wallace (Infinite Jest)
“
Me: Proposal?
* * *
Me: Let’s watch Hemlock Grove together. Via text.
* * *
Me: Also, I think it’s weird you’re always texting me, BUT, I AM texting back, so I guess that makes me weird too. You’re kind of…fun.
* * *
Zach: Only kind of?
* * *
Me: *rolls eyes* Way to ruin the moment.
* * *
Zach: *I* ruined the moment? You’re the one who lied.
* * *
Me: Point out my lie.
* * *
Zach: KIND OF. Like we both don’t know how remarkable I am.
* * *
Me: You’re very full of yourself.
* * *
Zach: Or confident. Take your pick.
* * *
Me: Why am I still talking to you?
* * *
Zach: Because we’re going to binge Hemlock Grove together?
* * *
Me: Give me thirty and we’re on.
* * *
Me: WAIT. What are you ordering to eat? Let’s be real losers and eat the same thing.
* * *
Zach: *groans* Do we HAVE to?
* * *
Zach: I’m ordering Chinese.
* * *
Me: Nah. Let’s get wings.
* * *
Zach: Fine. Wings it is.
* * *
Me: *whispers* What kind are you getting?
* * *
Zach: WE ARE NOT GETTING THE SAME FLAVOR. We aren’t THAT pathetic.
* * *
Me: Fine, but just so you know, I’m pouting.
”
”
Teagan Hunter (Let's Get Textual (Texting, #1))
“
So we do go out to the San Jose highway to watch Cody recap tires—There he is wearing goggles working like Vulcan at his forge, throwing tires all over the place with fantastic strength, the good ones high up on a pile, “This one’s no good” down on another, bing, bang, talking all the time a long fantastic lecture on tire recapping which has Dave Wain marvel with amazement—(“My God he can do all that and even explain while he’s doing it”)—But I just mention in connection with the fact that Dave Wain now realizes why I’ve always loved Cody—Expecting to see a bitter ex con he sees instead a martyr of the American Night in goggles in some dreary tire shop at 2 A.M. making fellows laugh with joy with his funny explanations yet at the same time to a T performing every bit of the work he’s being paid for—Rushing up and ripping tires off car wheels with a jicklo, clang, throwing it on the machine, starting up big roaring steams but yelling explanations over that, darting, bending, flinging, flaying, till Dave Wain said he thought he was going to die laughing or crying right there on the spot.
”
”
Jack Kerouac (Big Sur)
“
Yep! I was twenty-six years old and an associate beauty editor at Lucky, one of the top fashion magazines in America, and that’s all that most people knew about me. But beneath the surface, I was full of secrets: I was an addict, for one. A pillhead! I was also an alcoholic-in-training who drank warm Veuve Clicquot after work, alone in my boss’s office with the door closed; a conniving uptown doctor shopper who haunted twenty-four-hour pharmacies while my coworkers were at home watching True Blood in bed with their boyfriends; a salami-and-provolone-puking bulimic who spent a hundred dollars a day on binge foods when things got bad (and they got bad often); a weepy, wobbly hallucination-prone insomniac who jumped six feet in the air à la LeBron James and gobbled Valium every time a floorboard squeaked in her apartment; a tweaky self-mutilator who sat in front of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, digging gory abscesses into her bikini line with Tweezerman Satin Edge Needle Nose Tweezers; a slutty and self-loathing downtown party girl fellatrix rushing to ruin; and—perhaps most of all—a lonely weirdo who felt like she was underwater all of the time. My brains were so scrambled you could’ve ordered them for brunch at Sarabeth’s; I let art-world guys choke me out during unprotected sex; I only had one friend, a Dash Snow–wannabe named Marco who tried to stick syringes in my neck and once slurped from my nostrils when I got a cocaine nosebleed;
”
”
Cat Marnell (How to Murder Your Life)
“
The first thing I want to say about Boyfriend is that he’s an extraordinarily decent human being. He’s kind and generous, funny and smart, and when he’s not making you laugh, he’ll drive to the drugstore at two a.m. to get you that antibiotic you just can’t wait until morning for. If he happens to be at Costco, he’ll text to ask if you need anything, and when you reply that you just need some laundry detergent, he’ll bring home your favorite meatballs and twenty jugs of maple syrup for the waffles he makes you from scratch. He’ll carry those twenty jugs from the garage to your kitchen, pack nineteen of them neatly into the tall cabinet you can’t reach, and place one on the counter, accessible for the morning. He’ll also leave love notes on your desk, hold your hand and open doors, and never complain about being dragged to family events because he genuinely enjoys hanging out with your relatives, even the nosy or elderly ones. For no reason at all, he’ll send you Amazon packages full of books (books being the equivalent of flowers to you), and at night you’ll both curl up and read passages from them aloud to each other, pausing only to make out. While you’re binge-watching Netflix, he’ll rub that spot on your back where you have mild scoliosis, and when he stops, and you nudge him, he’ll continue rubbing for exactly sixty more delicious seconds before he tries to weasel out without your noticing (you’ll pretend not to notice). He’ll let you finish his sandwiches and sentences and sunscreen and listen so attentively to the details of your day that, like your personal biographer, he’ll remember more about your life than you will. If this portrait sounds skewed, it is.
”
”
Lori Gottlieb (Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed)
“
This is a short public service announcement: you don't have to fail with abandon.
Say you're playing Civilization, and your target is to get to sleep before midnight, and you check the clock, and it's already 12:15. If that happens, you don't have to say "too late now, I already missed my target" and then keep playing until 4 in the morning.
Say you're trying to eat no more than 2000 calories per day, and then you eat 2300 by the end of dinner, you don't have to say "well I already missed my target, so I might as well indulge."
If your goal was to watch only one episode of that one TV show, and you've already watched three, you don't have to binge-watch the whole thing.
Over and over, I see people set themselves a target, miss it by a little, and then throw all restraint to the wind. "Well," they seem to think, "willpower has failed me; I might as well over-indulge." I call this pattern "failing with abandon."
But you don't have to fail with abandon. When you miss your targets, you're allowed to say "dang!" and then continue trying to get as close to your target as you can.
You don't have to say dang, either. You're allowed to over-indulge, if that's what you want to do. But for lots and lots of people, the idea of missing by as little as possible never seems to cross their mind. They miss their targets, and then suddenly they treat their targets as if they were external mandates set by some unjust authority; the jump on the opportunity to defy whatever autarch set an impossible target in the first place; and then (having already missed their target) they reliably fail with abandon.
So this is a public service announcement: you don't have to do that. When you miss your target, you can take a moment to remember who put the target there, and you can ask yourself whether you want to get as close to the target as possible. If you decide you only want to miss your target by a little bit, you still can.
You don't have to fail with abandon.
”
”
Nate Soares (The Replacing Guilt Series)
“
It may be tempting to binge-watch our way through these next months. But TV washes over you. Reading draws you in. Books that absorb us, books that calm us down, books that comfort us, books that remind us we are not alone but part of the grand sweep of history, books that surprise and enchant us — this is what we’re looking for.
~ From The New York Times article, "Let Books Create Your Summer
”
”
Sarah Lyall
“
Ronan Byrne, an electrical engineering student in Dublin, Ireland, enjoyed watching Netflix, but he also knew that he should exercise more often than he did. Putting his engineering skills to use, Byrne hacked his stationary bike and connected it to his laptop and television.20 Then he wrote a computer program that would allow Netflix to run only if he was cycling at a certain speed. If he slowed down for too long, whatever show he was watching would pause until he started pedaling again. He was, in the words of one fan, “eliminating obesity one Netflix binge at a time.
”
”
James Clear (Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones)
“
What prevents me from writing the book? The heat, the dog, the day, air-conditioning, desiring to exist in the present tense, constant thinking, sickness, fucking, groceries, cooking, yoga, loneliness and sadness, the internet, political depression, my period, obsession with skin care, late capitalism, binge-watching television on my computer, competition and jealousy over the attention of other writers, confusion over the novel, circling around but not finishing anything, reading, researching, masturbating, time passing.
”
”
Kate Zambreno (Drifts)
“
I was not perpetually sad – that’s not what depression is. More than ever before, I was tired all the time. I had lost interest in most activities. I was eating whatever, whenever, drinking more and more. I was easily irritated. Despite wanting to do not much more than sleep, I couldn’t sleep. I had developed chronic back pain that even an MRI could not diagnose. These were the individual signs and symptoms of depression I had battled for decades, and now I was experiencing them all at the same time and they were not going away. I was no longer able to hide what I was dealing with from my family and those closest to me. More than anyone, my wife knew that, if she couldn’t find me in my home office, my work for the day was done and I was in our room binge-watching something on the television, anything to get away from the noise of life. On stage, in court, in public and on social media, I remained in character: high energy and high efficiency, just another terrific day. Backstage, away from where you could see me, where only my family and closest friends could see, nothing: an empty shell. That’s no way to exist and it certainly is not living.
”
”
David Givot (Sirens, Lights, and Lawyers: The Law & Other Really Important Stuff EMS Providers Never Learned in School)
“
of the reward circuitry leads to a localized rebellion. If DeltaFosB is the gas pedal for bingeing, the molecule CREB functions as the brakes. CREB dampens our pleasure response.[134] It inhibits dopamine. CREB is trying to take the joy out of bingeing so that you give it a rest. Oddly enough, high levels of dopamine stimulate the production of both CREB and DeltaFosB. Our bodies are equipped with countless feedback mechanisms to keep us alive and functioning well. It makes perfect sense for mammals also to have evolved a braking system for bingeing on food or sex. There comes a time to move on and take care of the kids or maybe hunt and gather. But the glitch in the CREB/DeltaFosB balancing act is that it evolved long before humans were exposed to powerful reinforcers such as whiskey, cocaine, ice cream, or porn tube sites. All have the potential to override evolved satiation mechanisms, including CREB’s brakes. Put simply, CREB doesn’t stand much chance in the era of supernormal stimuli and widely available prescription and illicit drugs. What’s CREB to do in face of a Big Mac, fries and milkshake dinner, followed by 3-hour Mountain Dew-fuelled Call of Duty session, and two hours of surfing PornHub while smoking a joint? What array of enticements did a 19-year old hunter-gatherer encounter to goose his dopamine? Perhaps a second helping of overcooked rabbit meat or watching the four girls he’d known since birth tan hides.
”
”
Gary Wilson (Your Brain On Porn: Internet Pornography and the Emerging Science of Addiction)
“
During our late-night Netflix binges, we'll watch the classic romantic film Saptapadi, starring Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen. That was her favourite.
”
”
Siddhartha Sur (The Void Within)
“
Sometimes my back hurts when I work out too hard or if I lay in one spot so long that Netflix dares to ask if I’m still watching the show I’ve been binging.
”
”
Trilina Pucci (Tangled in Tinsel (The More the Merrier, #1))
“
I’m talking mashed potatoes. Roast potatoes. Sweet potatoes. Potato casserole. Those thinly sliced potatoes with that cheese sauce on them. Potato salad, even.”
“Jimmy?” Dallas says with a startlingly sweet smile. “Yeah?”
“Shut the hell up about potatoes.”
“But they’re the best part of Thanksgiving dinner! Everyone knows that.”
“It’s my Irish blood, makes me love the things. Can’t get enough of ‘em.”
“Binge-watching Collin Farrell movies while youeat Lucky Charms doesn’t make you Irish, dumbass,” he grouches.
“I dress up for St. Patrick’s day, too,” Triple J responds, defensive.
I swivel from where I’m removing my shin guards to peer at him. “What the hell do you dress up as for St. Patrick’s day?”
He shakes his head at me like I’m incredibly stupid for asking this. “A leprechaun, of course.”
Dallas grins. “Surely you don’t even need a costume for that one.
”
”
Katie Bailey (Season's Schemings (Cyclones Christmas, #1))
“
(Did I just get this reference from binge-watching One Tree Hill? Maybe?)
”
”
Chloe Elise (Deeper Than Money: Ditch Money Shame, Build Wealth, and Feel Confident AF)
“
Human, human, human. Make ourselves see what we pretend to know. Remind ourselves that we are an animal united as a species existing on this tender blue speck in space, the only planet that we know of containing life. Bathe in the corny sentimental miracle of that. Define ourselves by the freakish luck of not only being alive, but being aware of that. That we are here, right now, on the most beautiful planet we’ll ever know. A planet where we can breathe and live and fall in love and eat peanut butter on toast and say hello to dogs and dance to music and read Bonjour Tristesse and binge-watch TV dramas and notice the sunlight accentuated by hard shadow on a building and feel the wind and the rain on our tender skin and look after each other and lose ourselves in daydreams and night dreams and dissolve into the sweet mystery of ourselves. A day where we are, essentially, precisely as human as one another.
”
”
Matt Haig (Notes on a Nervous Planet)
“
Here, the presence of other people felt different; or maybe she was different. Civilization had gone awry, with its buildings and highways, its digitalization and consumption. Binge-watching TV. Humans had adapted to a meaningless structure of work and wealth that resulted in a fundamental loss of identity. Here, you could return to the natural order, enjoy the two-part state of doing-the-necessities-to-survive and sitting-around-doing-nothing, unburdened of existential angst.
”
”
Zoje Stage (Getaway)
“
that pop-culture content.” Moore chuckled. “There’s been this amazing shift. It used to be the parents coming to me, worried sick about what their kids were watching and listening to, asking what they could do to pull them back,” he said. “Now, almost everywhere I go—this just happened at a church I visited the other night—it’s the kids coming to me. They say their evangelical parents have gone totally crazy, binge-watching Fox News or Newsmax or One America News, and they want to know how to pull them back.” Darling noted how there were people at his church who had strayed “really far into the conspiracy stuff, and sending them legitimate news articles with facts does not work.
”
”
Tim Alberta (The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism)
“
The edges were blackened with fingers of soot spreading around the wall. It looked like something from the Upside Down – Morgan had just binge-watched all of Stranger Things and it was still on her mind.
”
”
Helen Phifer (Their Burning Graves (Detective Morgan Brookes, #8))
“
abing, abing, a-bing-bong— “We never even presented the captain with his watch,” said Carrot, taking it out of his pocket.
”
”
Terry Pratchett (Men at Arms (Discworld, #15; City Watch, #2))
“
As I turn on my computer: Come to Me, I want to connect with you. As I make a phone call to talk through my stress with a friend: Call on Me! As I scroll through Facebook: Don’t follow them, follow Me. As I open up Instagram: Come to Me, open up to Me. As I binge watch another late-night TV show: Come. To. Me. As I start a text, complaining to a friend about my day: Delete that; don’t complain to her, come to Me. As I link over to Amazon Prime for a little retail therapy: Come to Me, I’m a Wonderful Counselor. As I run in to Starbucks for something sweet: My words are sweet as honey. Come to me. As I turn to comfort food: Come to Me, I’m the Great Comforter.
”
”
Wendy Speake (The 40-Day Social Media Fast: Exchange Your Online Distractions for Real-Life Devotion)
“
Some of us couch surf while binge-watching Netflix. Some of us read romance novels. We’ll do almost anything to distract ourselves from ourselves. Yet all this trying to insulate ourselves from pain seems only to have made our pain worse.
”
”
Anna Lembke (Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence)
“
The notion of making more free time has been gaining traction, but most people I know use that extra time to catch up on errands or email, or recharge their batteries through passive relaxation, such as binge-watching Netflix or online shopping. But the most joyful people I know manage to hold a space for play in their adult lives: a recreational sport, an improv-comedy hobby, a band they jam with on weekends, a family game night, or an hour a week set aside to dabble in watercolors.
”
”
Ingrid Fetell Lee (Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness)
“
Our pastor said it was a bad influence. Of course, that didn’t stop my mom from inhaling telenovelas. Only I had to suffer. I swear, the first night after my parents left Duquette, I binged the entire first season of Dawson’s Creek. Just ate it up. I wanted to watch that show so bad
”
”
Ashley Winstead (In My Dreams I Hold a Knife)
“
The Myth of “My” Money Many clients come to our office thinking they are in for a simple division of assets, even though they never got a prenup. “We kept everything separate,” these clients report. “The house is in my name, we kept separate bank accounts—what’s theirs and mine is easy to see.” I have to break the news to these souls that, because there is no prenup that states otherwise, regardless of its title, regardless of who paid what from which account, the appreciation and equity in that house that occurred after they were married are considered part of their marital estate. As such, the house does not wholly belong to either person; its gains belong to both of them, equally. That’s because once someone is hitched, in the eyes of the law there is no such thing as “my money,” at least not outside the wedding-eve value of a premarital asset. (A premarital asset is something a spouse owned individually before the marriage.) From then on—at least, without a prenup that states otherwise—there is only “our money.” After they marry, if one spouse opts to binge-watch Netflix on the couch rather than hold down a job, under the law, half of every paycheck their worker bee other half earns is considered rightfully theirs.
”
”
Aaron Thomas (The Prenup Prescription: Meet the Premarital Contract Designed to Save Your Marriage)
“
Ah, the sacred art of "me time"! It's like pressing the pause button on life's chaos and indulging in some serious self-love. Whether it's binge-watching your favorite show, treating yourself to a spa day at home, or simply curling up with a good book and a cup of tea, me time is all about reclaiming your sanity and recharging your batteries. So, go ahead, carve out some space in your busy schedule, and remember: you can't pour from an empty cup, so take care of yourself first.
”
”
Life is Positive
“
One thing that is frequently left out of the cultural conversation about binge eating—to the extent that there is one—is its sheer, widespread accessibility as far as addictions and substance dependencies go. Yes, food costs money, but generally less so than alcohol or drugs, and even more significantly, you can binge eat while still remaining lucid enough to show up for work or watch your kid. “In my experience, certain populations of women are most at risk for compulsive overeating. These are the women who are caretakers, whose life work is nurturing others. Nurses, for example, are notorious for having goodies in their nursing stations and eating when they are overworked and tired.
”
”
Emma Specter (More, Please: On Food, Fat, Bingeing, Longing, and the Lust for "Enough")
“
I’m not a dress girl at all. I feel completely awkward and, honestly, not very beautiful wearing this purple dress and insanely high heels that Chloe and Rayne talked me into when we went dress shopping a few weeks ago. I really want to go home and throw on an old faded T-shirt and ripped jeans and curl up on the couch with a book or maybe watch a movie and binge on chocolate and ice cream.
”
”
Carian Cole (Torn (All Torn Up #1))
“
Have you noticed how busy people are in today’s world? Especially women. Sometimes there is simply no room for anything else to happen. When you fill your day with work and you’re making calls even during your commute, you leave no space for God. When you’ve got so many hobbies and projects that you can’t even keep track of what’s going on, you leave no space for God. When you give everything you have to your family because you’re desperate for their approval, you leave no space for God. And when you line up a whole season of TV shows on your DVR and just binge watch episode after episode, you leave no space for God. God is not a divine vacuum salesman who will try to force His way into your house or your life. He will wait until you offer Him some space to work, and then He will work. Make space for God in your life. Otherwise, you will have no room for prayer.
”
”
T.D. Jakes (When Women Pray: 10 Women of the Bible Who Changed the World through Prayer)
“
Another respondent said, "I used to believe self-care and coddling were synonymous, that the best way of curing depression was to stay as far inside my comfort zone as possible. Stay in, watch my favorite movies over and over, binge on desserts, don't put any effort into anything that might 'exhaust' me. Then I realized I had already committed suicide, by refusing to live. Now, I get out of depression by doing new things with new people, taking risks, putting in effort on big and small things. Long story short, huddling inside a blanket eating ice cream may be comforting enough for one day, but it's not the way your whole life should be led.
”
”
J.S. Park (How Hard It Really Is: A Short, Honest Book About Depression)
“
Women need other women. To laugh with, to cry with, to tell us when our skirt is see-through, to binge-watch Outlander and drink wine and eat too many peanut M&Ms. We need women who show up in our lives, who are present through the best and the worst.
”
”
Bradeigh Godfrey (The Followers)
“
Watching his retreating form was like watching the shoreline disappear as I drifted out to sea. I wanted to call him back and make him stay so I didn’t lose that feeling of breathlessness he had created. But I knew that yearning was reckless and counterproductive to everything I’d worked toward—like bingeing an entire pizza after a week of clean eating—only so much more catastrophic.
”
”
Jill Ramsower (Corrupted Union (The Byrne Brothers #2))
“
Valentine’s Day isn’t just for couples—it’s also the perfect occasion to shower yourself with love and appreciation. Whether it’s indulging in your favorite treats, binge-watching your favorite show, or simply enjoying some well-deserved relaxation, make sure to show yourself some appreciation. After all, who needs roses when you’ve got self-love blooming within you? So go ahead, be your own Valentine, and celebrate the most important relationship of all—the one you have with yourself!
”
”
Life is Positive
“
It’s the pain, isn’t it? With enough pain, you wink out.” He didn’t answer, and I grinned. “I’m totally going to force you to binge-watch the Kardashians, to see if we can try this at home.
”
”
Jenn Stark (Getting Wilde (Immortal Vegas, #2))
“
All my life, I have binge-watched crime dramas and love movies with cops being the heroes, but this wasn’t a movie. This was real life and it was happening in real time. At the conclusion of the two-hour meeting, I wanted to tell the taxi driver not to take us back to the DNC but right to the Pentagon. This was a war, clearly, but waged on a different kind of battlefield. During that twelve-block ride up Capitol Hill, we didn’t say a thing. Henry looked left, Ray looked right, Tom was checking his phone, and I was in suspended disbelief looking straight up at the dome of the U.S. Capitol. As soon as we got back into the building, we sat numb and silent on the couches in Debbie’s office. I am not one to tremble, because I am my daddy’s girl and I do not scare easily.
”
”
Donna Brazile (Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House)
“
That’s a New Orleans word I’ve heard nowhere else. The boobatoir is that room of the house where you lay down and binge-watch television. It’s the place where you kick off your shoes and set down your purse after a long day. Mine had a comfy sofa and a nice big television.
”
”
Donna Brazile (Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House)
“
Most of the theaters in Jersey City and the surrounding area have been closed, demolished, renovated or restored, but nothing remained the same. The Stanley Theatre still stands in Journal Square, completely restored as a Jehovah’s Witnesses Assembly Hall. Originally built as a vaudeville and movie theater, having 4,300 seats, it opened on March 22, 1928 as the second largest theater in the United States. With only Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan across the Hudson River being larger, many celebrities attended the gala occasion. The well liked but notorious Mayor Hague was present to cut the ribbon. Famous and not-so-famous headline acts performed here, including the Three Stooges, Jimmy Durante, Tony Bennett and Janis Joplin.
It was here at the Stanley Theatre that Frank Sinatra was inspired to become a professional performer. Being part of the audience, he watched Bing Crosby doing a Christmas performance. By the time the show was over, Sinatra had decided on the path he would follow. In 1933 Frank’s mother got him together with a group called the “Three Flashes.” They changed their name to the “Hoboken Four” and won first prize performing on the Major Bowes Amateur Hour show. Frank worked locally until June of 1939, when Harry James hired him for a one-year contract, paying only $75 a week. That December, Sinatra joined Tommy Dorsey’s band as a replacement vocalist for Jack Leonard, and the rest is history!
”
”
Hank Bracker
“
Typically, “letting my hair down” meant that I would sit in front of the television and binge-watch HGTV for hours at a time. Many a weekend since the divorce had been spent this way. My obsession with Chip and Joanna Gaines had reached epic proportions by now. To the point that I seriously contemplated moving to Waco, Tx before settling on New York.
”
”
Barbie Bohrman (The Best Man (Allen Brothers, #1))
“
Someone with whom, when you smell a certain T-shirt they own, you are instantly whisked to a happy memory about the time he or she made you breakfast and you both stayed in and binge-watched all eight season of Perfect Strangers.
”
”
Aziz Ansari (Modern Romance: An Investigation)
“
You may find yourself binge-watching random YouTube videos of Beavis and Butthead binge-watching random music videos, and you may ask yourself, “Well… how did I get here?
”
”
Brian Alan Ellis (A Series of Pained Facial Expressions Made While Shredding Air Guitar)
“
...I conducted a number of experiments to get in touch with my future self. Here are my favorite three:
• Fire up AgingBooth. While hiring a programmer to create a 3-D virtual reality simulator is probably out of your price range, I personally love an app called AgingBooth, which transforms a picture of your face into what you will look like in several decades. There are also other apps like it, like Merrill Edge’s web app that shows you a live avatar of what you’ll look like at retirement (faceretirement.merilledge.com). AgingBooth is my favorite of them all, and it’s available for both Android and iOS, and it’s free. On the website for this book (productivityprojectbook.com), you can see what to expect out of the app—I’ve framed a picture of myself that hangs above my computer in my office, where I see it every day. Visitors are usually freaked out.
• Send a letter to your future self. Like the letter I wrote at camp, writing and sending a letter to yourself in the future is a great way to bridge the gap between you and your future self. I frequently use FutureMe.org to send emails to myself in the future, particularly when I see myself being unfair to future me.
• Create a future memory. I’m not a fan of hocus-pocus visualizations, so I hope this doesn’t sound like one. In her brilliant book The Wallpaper Instinct, Kelly McGonigal recommends creating a memory of yourself in the future—like one where you don’t put off a report you’re procrastinating on, or one where you read ten interesting books because you staved off the temptation of binge-watching three seasons of House of Cards on Netflix. Simply imagining a better, more productive version of yourself down the line has been shown to be enough to motivate you to act in ways that are helpful for your future self.
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Chris Bailey (The Productivity Project: Accomplishing More by Managing Your Time, Attention, and Energy)
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There is no greater joy than putting laptop on your belly and binge watching movies/tv series.
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Crestless Wave
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The biggest miscalculation the tyrants and despots had made was to convince themselves that their citizens scorned the Western way of life, when in fact the opposite was true: Western ways were the envy of the world. Not only did people want to be able to choose their own leaders, enjoy a free press, and speak their minds freely and openly without fear of reprisal, but they yearned to look and live and love as they pleased. They wanted to wear the current trendy styles and fashions from the US and Europe, follow the exploits of their favourite celebrities, play the newest video games, watch the latest Hollywood blockbusters, binge on television box sets, view pornography, and download the hot new pop songs and videos.
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Bruce Paley (The Obrovský Theatre Co. of Blaznivyzeme)
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me. “Well, I know one thing about my twins. They’re not going to be models. I already tried them out for catalogue work. Within the first ten minutes, Orianthe informed me that she doesn’t like to do boring things and that modelling’s boring. And she’s not going to let her brother do boring things either.” I laughed. The cries of the twins pealed down the hallway as they bounded inside and called Jessie’s name. They must have discovered she was home. “Hey, where’s the pup?” I asked Pria. “Can I see him? Jessie said he’s growing big.” Immediately, Pria rolled her eyes and made a low disparaging sound. “I sent Buster out with the dog walker as soon as I knew Kate was coming over with the kids. He’d knock them flying. Wish I’d never bought him, to tell you the truth. After the break-in, I wanted a watchdog, but I should have paid more attention to the breed. He’s damned strong—even though he’s only nine months old. And he snaps. To tell you the truth, I’m a bit scared of the mutt. I’m having a dog trainer try to rein him in, but if that doesn’t work, he’s gone.” “What a shame,” I said. “Jess told me she’d like to walk the dog sometimes, but that’s not sounding good.” “Nope. The only thing I got right about him is his name. Because Buster has busted everything from doors to shoes.” She shook her head, a sorry smile on her face. The sound of the three children playing became too much. Tommy had once run through this house, too. I stayed for a while longer then made an excuse to leave. 29. PHOEBE Tuesday night STORM CLOUDS PUSHED INTO THE SKY, making the day darken a good hour before the incoming night. The heavy atmosphere pressed down on me. I opened the window of my bedroom upstairs at Nan’s house, letting the chill air stream in. I could only just catch a glimpse of the water from here. An enormous cruise liner dominated the harbour, staining the water red and blue with its lights. Maybe my small step in seeing Pria and Kate earlier had helped my frame of mind, but I didn’t feel it yet. I was back at square one. I began pacing the room, feeling unhinged. Things were all so in between. Dr Moran hadn’t succeeded in jogging my memory about the letters. She’d said she didn’t think it was possible to do all that I’d done in sleepwalking sessions and so the memory should still be in my mind somewhere. True sleepwalkers rarely remembered their dreams. Not remembering any of it was the most disturbing thing of all. It wasn’t the first time I’d forgotten things. With the binge drinking and the trauma of losing Tommy, there were gaps in my memory. But not a fucking chasm. And forgetting the writing of three notes and delivering them was a fucking chasm. Nan called me for dinner, and we ate the pumpkin soup together. I’d tried watching one of her sitcoms with her after that, but I gave up halfway through. I headed back upstairs. Surprisingly, I was tired enough to sleep. I crawled into bed and let myself drift off. I woke just before four thirty in the morning. The temperature had plummeted—I guessed it was below ten degrees. I’d been dreaming. The dream had been of the last day that Sass, Luke, Pria, Kate,
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Anni Taylor (The Game You Played)
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Rich people value unique practical education more than binge-watching something on Netflix.
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David Angway
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This is the relationship between mindfulness and mindlessness. As we grow more mindful, we become less mindless. As we get tired and need downtime, we put away the books and binge-watch our favorite Netflix series, at which point, mindlessness increases and mindfulness dwindles. This is a symbiotic relationship that is absolutely necessary,
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Josh Misner (Put the F**king Phone Down: Life. Can't Wait.)
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I binge-watched every season of Seinfeld when I was fifteen and came out of it believing that Jerry was right—there’s something annoying about every single human on this planet. Annoying enough to make relationships seem like torture.
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Colleen Hoover (Layla)
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The Morlocks pumped up their self-esteem by ingesting steroids, binge-watching porn, and vandalizing anything or anyone who displayed an iota of what Flo called “grace” and Dill referred to as “being different.
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Dirk Wittenborn (The Stone Girl)
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A lot of my friends who have teenagers, they've shared with me that they watch it almost as an emotional soother. If they're in a bad mood, they'll just pop on The Office and they'll binge-watch it. (Amy Ryan)
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Andy Greene (The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s: An Oral History)
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I binge-watched every season of Seinfeld
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Colleen Hoover (Layla)
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This means you need to become aware of the trigger (anxiety), the distraction behavior (such as eating, alcohol consumption, or binge-watching a television show), and the reward (when you feel better after distracting yourself from the trigger). Once you have identified the usual anxiety-distraction habit loop, you need to figure out when and how often they occur. Ask yourself if it happens in a certain context or during a particular time of day. What is the stimulus that triggers your anxiety? Then, start to explore how rewarding such habit loops actually are.
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Harley Hunter (Stop Overthinking!: 9 Steps to Eliminate Stress, Anxiety, Negativity and Focus on Your Productivity)