The title of this post is from a great book by Richard Russo, called Straight Man. The lead character thinks the line to himself right before he rises from a sticky, beer-covered table in a bar, and, despite being a well-respected professor in his community, despite knowing that this cannot possibly be in his best interest, hurls himself into a bar fight.

I cannot be the only one who does things that are not good for me. I just read over at LifeHacker that I could lose $1 million over the course of my lifetime by watching television instead of using that time starting my own small business from home. So, does that mean that in my case, I should start another small business from home?

What happens when, in my case, I could actually lose money week by NOT watching television? I currently write three TV show reviews per week, and get paid to do it, for a blog. And I have started to wonder whether this falls under the category of “Not good for me.” I spend an hour watching each show, so that’s three hours total, and then nearly another hour per show writing my reviews, finding images I am allowed to use in my posts, resizing the images, figuring out which number the episode is and what season in the show it is, and then creating a poll for the end of my post. So, that is about six hours a week for about less than minimum wage per hour.

And then the commenters are often nasty.

Why do I keep doing this? So I can justify having HBO for the summer? Because it’s something that I hope I can use as a portfolio sometime later? Because I like getting advance screenings of shows in the mail? Because I want the free T-shirt for the site? Does this make me feel cool? I suppose it is a combination of all of the above. It certainly isn’t because of the money. And there is usually nothing wrong with that.

But I can’t help wondering whether I would be a) making more money by working on my medical editing projects when those shows are on instead of watching them; b) making more money by working on tasks that I can do while watching TV, instead of having to watch the shows carefully for reviewing purposes; or c) more relaxed if I could just watch the shows– or just Tivo them and not have to watch them when they air and then write reviews right after. This is starting to feel like a whole lot of effort for not much gain.

What are YOU doing that isn’t good for YOU?