Remember the days when… if you wanted to save a television show episode you needed to record it yourself on VHS? And if you were diligent enough you could start and stop the recording so that the commercials wouldn’t be saved?

Now many television shows are available for purchase on DVD, complete with special features and commentary versions. And with the progression of technology, films are becoming much easier to own as well.

But how does this influence the use of our free time? If someone has 5 seasons of a program with an average of 20 episodes per season, that’s 100 episodes. Just of one show.

The incredible volume in entertainment options also applies to music — how many songs and albums are owned and how often are they listened to in a given year? (I know it’s been years since I’ve listened to some of my CDs.) And after you watch seasons of a television show, how frequently do you go back to watch them again?

Purchasing some of your favorites so that they’re always available is understandable, but that differs from people who tend to have a “collect them all” mentality for particular television shows or film series. For them, buying movies and television shows becomes a pricey hobby.

Even with the opportunity to own it all in our entertainment-crazed culture, we need to try to keep perspective and not give in to the mentality that if I “kind of like” that movie/television show, I should put my money into purchasing it and my time into watching it again and again.

The beauty is in the balance.