guilty pleasure gone

I have a confession to make. Since the first minute of the first episode six years ago, I've been a Grey's Anatomy fan. It was my guilty pleasure. I LOVE the cast, love the humor, love the medical aspect, love the story lines. Without a doubt, it's been my favorite all-time TV show and in my opinion, one of the most well-scripted shows ever. However. Without a doubt, it's also the trashiest, most offensive to my Spirit thing that I've ever watched on TV. I confess, I have never watched one single episode without feeling guilt for indulging in it.

For the first few years, I tried to overlook the immorality and enjoyed the characters and stories and humor of it all. However, the show continues to steadily become more immoral, more sleazy, made more political statements, become more just plain offensive. For years, I have justified that this show was "okay" because I could fast forward or just ignore certain scenes. No more.

I teach lessons to sixty women in Relief Society each month and I teach my children each day to "make good choices". I know that, for me, watching this show is not a good choice. It's definitely not uplifting or inspiring. I would be mortified if my children or Doug's Mom, walked in and saw much of what happens on that show. That being the case, it makes me somewhat of a hypocrite to watch it myself.

And so.. I stopped watching the show several episodes ago, stopped surfing the Internet blogs and updates and have fast-forwarded through any tempting commercials for upcoming episodes. However, I continued to record the show on TiVo...just in case. Just in case what? Just in case I want to make a poor choice again and fall off the "Grey's Wagon"? I've seriously felt better on Thursday nights for not watching it. Over the past few weeks, I've debated with myself and decided that I was not truly committed to this decision if I were still keeping the shows on my TiVo. So, yesterday, I cleared 38 hours of Grey's Anatomy off my TiVo . I tossed my complete DVD library of previous seasons. (I decided not to pass on my guilty pleasure to someone else.) I cancelled the Season Pass on my TiVo. I'm done. Completely done.

When I missed that first episode, the first moment I'd ever missed, I thought it would be painful. It wasn't. It's been weeks. And I'm still alive! I believe with all my heart that when we are truly trying to make good choices, we are blessed with capabilities that we otherwise might not have.

This has been my guiltiest pleasure for all these years and I'm over it! Everyone has their guilty pleasure. Some are a little more guilty than others. To some, this may even seem minor. But, this has bothered my soul for years and I feel great about the choice I've made. That's what it's all about... here a little, there a little, improving precept upon precept, bettering ourselves every day.

Finally, this thought from the lesson that I'll be teaching in a few weeks, keeps coming to my mind. Sister Mary Cook said regarding the example we set for our children, "If our example is confusing, we lose the confidence of our children because of our bad examples... Our message must be clear." This quote from the last LDS General Conference touches me deeply. This is one of the most important principles, that, especially as a mother, we can learn. Gee, now I can start deciding which one of the many other guilty pleasures do I want to conquer? Enough said.