This week, I was brought back to some of the most wonderful moments of my childhood.

Growing up in the 1980s had a special kind of rhythm to it.

You got up. You went to school. You came home. You did your homework. We had dinner.

And then came the part of the day we had been waiting for since morning.

We sat down together, as a family, and watched a couple of shows before bed.

I hadn't thought about that rhythm in a long time. Then, this week, a few images crossed my path.

The fall prime-time lineup.

The half-hour shows that owned the evening in millions of homes.

Growing Pains. The Wonder Years. Family Matters. Full House.

I looked at them, and a warmth moved through me that I felt in my body, in my heart, in my mind. All at once.

For a moment, I was back on that couch.

Saturday Mornings

And those images opened another door I had forgotten was there.

Saturday mornings.

My parents would wake my brother and me at 8 a.m. to catch the start of the morning run of cartoons. Many times, breakfast came to us in bed.

We loved it.

And I think my parents loved that we loved it.

Even those cartoons carried lessons tucked inside them. But what I remember most is the two of us, side by side, laughing at the same thing at the same moment.

Looking back now..., I can see what those mornings and those evenings had in common.

They brought us together. And did it in a wholesome way.

Do You Know Where Your Children Are

Those prime-time shows were fun. They were funny. And almost every week, somewhere inside the laughter, there was a lesson.

About drugs. About racism. About honesty, and friendship, and doing the right thing when it costs you something.

Whatever a family was trying to teach at the dinner table, those half hours seemed to reinforce it from the living room.

The show came on at a certain time. If you wanted to see it, you were in that room. Together. And when it got to the serious part, sometimes, talking about it.

Even the commercials were in on it.

Somewhere in the evening break, a voice would come on with a question every parent in the country heard.

"It's 10 p.m. Do you know where your children are?"

A reminder, broadcast into every living room, that someone was supposed to be paying attention.

There was an organic way it all came together. The values. The lessons. The family, gathered in one place at one time.

A simpler life, in a lot of ways.

The Drift

Somewhere along the way, we drifted from that.

Today, almost everything is available the moment you pick up a phone. Social media. On demand. Whatever we want, whenever we want it, wherever we happen to be sitting.

Too often that looks like everyone in a different room. Everyone watching something different. Nobody talking about any of it.

And the current wave of media pouring into our lives feels nowhere near as wholesome as what we grew up on.

Perhaps this has something to do with how we feel about the world right now. Why so many people seem less optimistic. Angrier. More confused.

I know some would say I'm remembering those years through a softer lens than they deserve. That the shows were a little corny. That the world outside the living room was far from perfect.

They'd be right on both counts.

And the warmth I felt this week was real anyway.

Go Looking

Nobody is calling us to the couch at eight o'clock anymore.

That part is gone.

What remains is the choice. What we absorb. What we put in front of our kids. What we go looking for when the day is finally over.

A few years ago, an old colleague told me I had to watch Ted Lasso.

"You of all people," she said. "It's right up your alley. It's such a feel-good show."

So at some point, I gave it a go.

And there it was.

That feeling. Real-world problems, real-world people, and good values running quietly underneath all of it. You just felt good when it was over.

I told all my kids they had to watch it. Then I begged them.

And one by one, they did.

One by one. Each of them in their own room, on their own time.

They're huge fans now. I'm grateful for that.

And I still wish we'd all been on the same couch when it happened.

But here's what that show taught me about all of this.

The good stuff is still being made. It's just harder to find, buried under everything else competing for our attention.

Every time we choose something wholesome, something funny, something with a lesson worth talking about afterward, we cast a vote.

And maybe, if enough of us go looking..., the machine that decides what gets made starts to notice. And slowly, it starts to move back toward us.

More of it gets made. More of it gets found.

More families end up in the same room again.

Just Look at the Names

Before I set those images aside, I sat for a few moments with my own favorites.

Growing Pains. Family Matters. The Wonder Years. Full House. Coach.

Really looking at the names.

Somewhere in those names is a lot of who I became.

I think most of us carry a list like that.

And I think the feeling that comes with it is the same one that found me this week. Everyone you loved, in one room. Laughing at the same thing. Exactly where you wanted to be.

We had that once.

I believe we deserve to feel that way again.

If not for us, then for our kids. And for their kids.

One day, I plan on finding some of those old shows and sitting down to watch them with my grandkids.

Maybe, just maybe, we get a little of it back.

So, what were your shows? The ones you sat and watched with your family?

Which names take you back? Whose laugh do you still hear when you think of them?

Hold on to that for a minute, before the day pulls you somewhere else.

That feeling is worth finding again.

And somewhere out there, it's still on.

With Absolute Sincerity,

Ed Clementi,

Founder & CEO of Inspired Fire, LLC

Make an Impact and Feel an Impact!