I love television. I love everything from the melodrama and catfights of “Desperate Housewives” to the gate-jumping travels of “Stargate Atlantis.” I love the oblivious, arrogant rejects of “American Idol.” I love Dwight Shrute and his cache of knives hidden throughout Dunder-Mifflin. I love how Tracy Morgan’s character on “30 Rock” maintains that he was walking backwards into that bookstore with a stolen dog. I love it all.

Television is great because it’s cheap, lazy entertainment. We don’t have to move. We just push a button. If we don’t like what we’re watching, escape is as simple as another button push. These days, with TiVo and DVR technology, television even conforms to our schedule. But have you noticed the unfortunate side effect of recorded television? Have you noticed that with days of recorded material, convenience has evolved into obligation?

So who is really in control? Is it us, or has television taken over our lives?

My screenwriting professor this past summer, Cole Russing, told me “Life is too short for television.” I scoffed. Growing up in a non-native English-speaking household, television has been as, if not more, important than my public education.

While my real parents worked to pay the bills and keep me fed, television acted like a third caretaker. Television taught me the etiquette, science, and history my parents never had the benefit of learning because they grew up as farmers in rural Laos. More importantly for a geeky young boy, television taught me how to deal with bullies, pretty girls, social awkwardness, and to embrace diversity. Television taught me how to be an American.

Three months ago, in the midst of an intense fall semester, I told myself I didn’t have time for television anymore. I canceled the cable and DVR and concentrated on school. Old CDs dug out of shoeboxes and an arcane iTunes library became the new background noise for homework sessions that used to be occupied with whatever was on TV. And then one day, as I was walking back from class, I felt this odd, fuzzy, radiant, warm feeling I wasn’t familiar with. I had to sit down and think.

What was this feeling? Of course the act of contemplation made it go away immediately, but I kept the memory with me. It wasn’t until the end of the semester that I attributed the correlation to my lack of television. Here I was refuting my own argument for the benefit of television from months prior. The feeling was maturation. I was beginning to learn to grow away from the television set.