I'm not a big fan of TV watching. It wastes time and makes me eat more than I really want to. More on that in a minute. The reason I even have a TV in my house is mainly to watch football. And I like to watch it in HD with my choice of a million channels to watch it on and digital recording with the option to transfer it to a DVD or my iPod. I also like to check out The Apprentice, both versions - Martha and Donald, and maybe sometimes I'll stop by the Amazing Race. And that's about it.

Even so, when I look at the time I spend watching TV, I realize that I could accomplish so much more in that amount of time. I could read or listen to a book. Fine tune my financial plan. Wash my car. Spend more time with my wife and daughter. And on and on.

I was watching Martha the other night and I picked up a few secrets during that show. Not necessarily from the show itself (although there are many tips hidden from the casual viewer that can be taken advantage of for success in life and business), but during the show breaks. I saw a hair commercial where the lady showed off how some shampoo made her hair pop with curls. Saw another one that tried to sell me life insurance while entrancing me with beautiful scenery of a gorgeous landscape and the ocean resting under a sunset in the background. There were many more but they all had common bonding factors that I, to this point, did not notice to this extent. One of those bonding factors is that every product, and in some cases the product of the product, looked good enough to eat. I'm dead serious. And I'm not even mentioning the food commercials.

You say, "Now I know you's crazy, MJ."

Maybe (I have always tried to look at things most other people either overlook or fail to see the beauty in. Therefore my views may seem a little strange sometimes. I love to laugh, though. People always roll their eyes at me because they think what I'm laughing at isn't that funny. They're right. What they think I'm laughing at isn't that funny. To me there is more fulfillment in seeing something they don't see than what any of us are laughing at. That alone is worth my laughter).

To each his own.

Back to the commercials. These people know they cannot just up and tell us to buy their product. Even when they try to prove its worth we still won't buy unless it's on sale. But they understand that if they hold a beautiful, luscious object in front of our eyes then we won't care anymore about what the product is or even how good it is. All we know is that we have to have it because now we have a deeper connection to it. And one thing we won't deny is ourselves. They know this. It's not a secret.

The scary thing about this is we don't even know what the beautiful, luscious thing really is. And one more thing - we don't really know if we even saw it.

That brings me to this: I write on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. I joke around a little because I have a right to try to entertain you. I don't expect you to tag along and believe everything or laugh at things I say. I believe in it but you have a right to think what you want. I'm not anybody. So now that that's fixed, let me move forward with this little commentary.

Little beautiful, luscious, sometimes invisible, things have the ability to control our lives. They may make us think we can do things we know deep inside we cannot do. They make us think we can be somebody we really cannot be. They have the power but that doesn't mean we can't win.

They have control over what we buy, eat, wear, use and, to a less conscious extent, think. They are the enemy and they have this control because we gave it to them by agreeing to buy, eat, wear, use and think what they said we should. I'm not saying we're walking around under the control of the letters ABC, NBC, CBS, ESPN, FOX, CNN...yes I am. They're job is to make us think we're hungry for whatever they're serving. They get paid to take control of the ones of us who have no control. They'll put on what they think we'll watch then serve up the goods during the breaks. The show can be good but the breaks are what take it to the next level. Once that show stops pulling in adequate bottom line advertising dollars I guarantee that show is on its way off the air completely or on to syndication.

Next time you're in front of the tube or LCD, watch it with a different eye and see if you don't walk away rethinking everything you do from that point forward. The TV is not your friend.