Kosher Activities
Please send us your ideas!It is generally true that a person who is busy doesn't have time to get into trouble. People with lots of free time on their hands fall into all kinds of traps. Don't sit in the house alone, bored and depressed. That is a bad combination. As the well known expression goes "Idle hands are the tools of the Satan". It wouldn't hurt to get away from the computer for a while! The computer takes a person out of reality, and especially these addictions! The addiction take a person slowly away from the reality of the world around them and away from his appreciation of having a lovely, healthy Jewish family and appreciation of being part of a supportive and vibrant Jewish community.
- Learn Torah (click for more)
- Learn a new subject or Language. Challenge yourself!
- Find a hobby
- Do some sports activity
- Get a job
- Start a chesed project or volunteer work to keep busy, help others and grow!
- Spend more time with friends.
- Spend more time with your wife and kids. They will love it, and you will start to love it too.
- Help your wife around the house
- Take the family to the park to play, breath fresh air, go for a picnic, play some ball or Frisbee and give your kids rides.
- Join a religious health club, or find some other exercise that you enjoy, and workout a few times a week. It will help release tensions, get you out of the house, and make your body and head stronger. (This has worked well for some people trying to break free of internet addiction).
- Ride a bike, 10 - 20 hours a week, especially if needed for health reasons. This can be done for long periods of time with some conditioning. It can be intellectually stimulating as well, as you have do use your head to do it correctly, and if done in scenic areas it can be "stimulating" to parts of your personality. Exercise has emotional value as well, which is desirable here.
Learn to play a musical instrument. There are self-teaching tapes in libraries for keyboards and piano at least. Many now are geared toward non-classical teaching methods, but the music can be classical or "varme Yiddishe niggunim". You can play at simchas, and for your own sanity.
Daven with a Minyan as often as possible. As one addict wrote: "Going to a minyan gets a person out of the house and adds structure to ones day. Both crucial steps for fighting the addiction. This is besides the obvious benefit of praying to Hashem by asking for help above, realizing we are powerless to change on our own".
If you focus on these projects and succeed in them, you'll have less of a need to seek self-satisfaction in fantasy worlds and you won't be bored and pulled to non-healthy stimulation.