Monetarily speaking, it doesn’t cost much to watch a plethora of video online. The financial cost is whatever you pay for Internet access, unless you have a capped data plan. Then it gets pricey real quick.

The cost I’m talking about is much more intangible and invisible and it’s much more greater as it accumulates.

Now it doesn’t seem like that at first. There are sites where you can now watch TV and movies online for free and for a greater selection, you can pay a small monthly fee for unlimited access to tens and thousands of movies and TV programs.

Sounds great, ON PAPER. It sounds like a freaking bargain.

So you sign up and indulge in this online video buffet, almost bordering on gluttony.

Watch one movie, watch another. Even worse if you start a TV series and go through six seasons worth. It’s much too easy with a click of a button.

The result?

You get a video hangover. Your mind aches. You become much more passive in life.

You lose WAY more time in your life, not just the time you spent watching, but the time afterwards too. There’s this post watching time period where you can’t really do anything. Your mind is in a haze. It’s shut off. You can’t bring yourself to take any fruitful action. That time period has no chance of any sort of productivity whatsoever.

It proves to be an opportunity cost in that you could’ve spent that time doing something that would’ve added way more value to your life.

The trap here is that you’re tempted to get the most bang for your buck. It’s like you go to a buffet, pay the price, and you want to try everything there is, fill your stomach up to the very top and leave satisfied that you consumed more than you paid for. Some people even go to the extent of eating all they can and then go to the bathroom to empty their stomachs, so they can start all over again.

It’s natural for us to try to get ourselves more value than what we pay for. In that respect, with regards to this article, we watch a lot of video.

But after the hangover, we realize it’s not good to indulge ourselves.

Then we begin to rationalize that we can discipline ourselves, to only watch when we want to, but it’s damn near impossible. To watch any video is just a click away and there are tens and thousands of videos. It’s like telling yourself you won’t get frostbite if you stick your foot in the snow and leave it there for hours on end.

Then we tell ourselves we watch for education, to learn. But we find we don’t learn that much anyway, and the things we do learn from watching the videos online, can be discovered quickly via the Internet with a Google search and 5 minutes of reading.

Not only that, a majority of the video will prove to be not worth your time at all as the old Pareto principle applies here as well.

You get so addicted to watching video online that instead of coming home after work to do something productive after a bit of relaxation, you watch TV and movies and soon it’s late, so it’s time to go to sleep and you repeat the process all over again the next day.

We need to start realizing that things like this involve LIFE COSTS.

What’s all this time spent watching video online and becoming addicted costing you in your REAL LIFE?

Time to spend with your wife and kids? Time to go out and make new friends who can introduce you to your future husband wife? Time to work on your fortune and freedom? Time to work on your rat race escape plan? Time to find the right career for you? Time to work out to lose weight and maintain excellent health?

Can you really put a price on all that?

Don’t be seduced by the free and low monthly payments and accept that as the only cost for watching TV and movies online. The cost is SO much more higher than you can EVER imagine if you find yourself getting sucked into this.

And for some, the cost will be so high that they will pay the price of a living a life they will truly regret after looking back.