The Television That Raised Me

The Zenith TV in our apartment was scratched and heavy, a small screen set inside a wooden box that looked like it should have come with a seat belt. It sat on a shaky side table beside the couch where I slept, next to a small fish tank with a nervous guppy circling endlessly. At night, the light from the screen turned the living room into an indoor moon. The rug was thin. The air carried the faint smell of laundry powder and broth. The TV hummed like a tired bee, and if you leaned close enough, static would lift the hair on your arms.

I learned to wake up to blue static before the station warmed. I learned to fall asleep with the television on because it was the only voice in the room that didn’t ask me to explain myself.

My parents woke early and came home late. They were new to Canada, and so was I. I was small, mostly quiet, and trying to understand a country that explained itself through cereal commercials and weather reports. The television didn’t care about my accent or the fact that I wore the same shirt twice in a week. It cared about one thing only: whether it was plugged in. If it was, it would do its job.

Some kids grow up near lakes or forests. I grew up inside a box that believed the world was thirteen inches wide. It showed me kitchens with islands, staircases inside houses, and bedrooms that existed just for sleeping. I thought wealth meant having a room you didn’t need.

I spent most afternoons and evenings alone, which meant I got to choose how I learned about the world. I learned that laughter could be turned on with a button because it arrived already packaged. The laugh track taught me how to smile even when I didn’t understand the joke. I didn’t know what it was called then. I only knew that strangers laughed at the right moments, and that consistency felt comforting. They liked me more reliably than my classmates did.

I learned English the way you learn to catch a bus: by running, guessing, and missing stops until eventually you don’t. Daytime television taught me words like “sale,” “instant,” and “limited time only.” Everything sounded urgent, as if the country itself was always about to run out of something. Sitcoms at night taught me how to apologize without saying sorry. Someone brought cookies. Someone helped with a task. Someone commented on the weather. You couldn’t learn this from a classroom. You learned it from body language, timing, and the way the credits rolled once forgiveness had been performed.

My favorite show was about three roommates in California who kept getting things wrong in gentle, predictable ways. Doors opened and closed. Jokes landed. Problems resolved themselves just in time. For those who didn’t grow up with it, imagine a world where adulthood was awkward but clean, difficult but funny. The show taught me that being grown up would be hard but manageable. That if you reacted correctly, you could fix your life in the time it took to boil noodles.

My parents rented Vietnamese films on VHS from a grocery store that also sold rice, incense, and a single brand of shampoo. The tapes groaned inside their plastic shells. The films lingered in silence and meaning. I understood some of the words and most of the feelings, but the stories weren’t mine yet. I sat nearby, nodding, trying to be a good son, while the television spoke to my parents in a language that fit them like an old jacket. Those movies were mirrors for them. The English shows were maps for me. The television did something no one else could. It brought us together without asking us to meet in the middle.

Television taught me how to sit in a room. How to appear attentive. How to wait my turn. The camera made ordinary things look important: a glass set down carefully, a pause before someone told the truth. I copied that rhythm. Years later, people told me I had “good presence” at work. What they meant was that I had learned how to speak television fluently. Presence is just a steady camera angle and an expression that doesn’t reveal too much.

It also taught me how power looks. Power wore clean suits and spoke clearly. Power said, “Let me be clear,” even when it wasn’t. No one on television rose through quiet competence. Promotions belonged to those who owned the spotlight. I didn’t know then that I would later spend years unlearning some of those lessons, distinguishing between authority and responsibility, between being seen and being useful.

Television made me, and it also made me impatient. Commercial breaks taught me to expect interruption and reward. I assumed problems should resolve themselves quickly. That stories ended in hugs. Life taught me otherwise. Some conflicts last years. Some endings don’t offer closure. Some letters arrive that you never get to answer. Television gave me a structure. Life gave me the work of living without one.

The apartment grew dark early in winter. The Zenith glowed like a stubborn sun. I did homework by the light of cereal ads, or pretended to. At the same hour I felt most invisible, people on screen were endlessly happy. Advertising sold the feeling I wanted and suggested it could be delivered with a spoon. I didn’t know then that I was learning how presentation works. How to edit. How to smooth edges. How to make emotion sound acceptable.

Later, when I worked in call centers, I could perform empathy on cue. I had seen it modeled hundreds of times. When I eventually began building real cultures, I had to let some of that go. Polished apologies. Fast resolutions. The smile timed to the end credits. Real cultures breathe. They need silence. They need time.

Television taught me timing. When to pause. When to speak. How to read a room without understanding every word. It taught me that loneliness is bearable if the light is right. I slept on a couch that doubled as a bed. The television waited without questions. The remote let me decide when the conversation ended. That felt like a form of power I could afford.

It also taught me what “normal” looked like. I didn’t see many people who looked like me on screen. When one appeared, it felt ceremonial. He stayed briefly, said something clever, then disappeared. Years later, as I built teams and watched talent cycle through organizations, I thought of him. People were allowed in for a scene, appreciated, and then replaced. I promised myself I would never build spaces that treated people that way.

The remote control felt like progress. It made me lazy in a way that felt earned. It also taught me discernment. You don’t know what you care about until you can change it instantly. Today, the screen edits us back. Algorithms decide before we’re hungry. The signal no longer waits for permission. It arrives already confident.

When I say television raised me, I don’t mean it made me false. It gave me a frame. A frame isn’t a lie. It’s a limit with intention inside. If you grow up poor, quiet, and busy translating your parents’ lives into forms and systems, a frame can keep chaos at bay. I learned how to enter a scene. How to imagine light where there wasn’t any. How to let music soften pain without mistaking it for healing.

As I get older, I see how those early lessons shaped what I now recognize as my Human Code. Not something inherited, but something assembled. From rooms, stories, habits, and small repetitions. Television taught me kindness before it taught me truth. Later, I learned to choose truth carefully.

I thought the television was my friend, and I wasn’t entirely wrong. It waited. It turned on when asked. It didn’t ask questions. It told me, honestly, that many people worked hard behind the scenes and I wasn’t one of them. Today, screens ask us to believe we are the show. That invitation can feel like love. It isn’t.

The difference is consent. I turned the television on. Today, the screen invites itself into your pocket. It wants to know when you sleep, what you want, what comes next. The inner rulebook matters more now than ever.

Television taught me about titles too. Shows have names. Episodes have names. People collect titles the same way, as proof they were somewhere. The title that matters most is the one that remains when the screen goes black. You won’t find it on a résumé. It shows up in how you stand with others when there’s no applause.

The lesson Zenith taught me about leadership is simple. Leaders control the light. Not to blind, but to reveal. Not to dominate the room, but to make it usable. Real leadership looks like daylight. It shows both the dust and the bread.

I don’t think about the scenes I was in when I think about legacy. I think about whether I helped build a stage sturdy enough for others to stand on without performing.

Sometimes, late at night, I still sit in a dark room and let a story play until it ends. The old itch returns. I want to know where to put my feelings. Then I remember the guppy, the hum, and the blue glow that made our apartment feel like it had another window. I lower the volume. I let the room return to itself.

The one question television and algorithms will never ask is the one that matters most.

Who are you when no one is watching and there is no theme song to help?