If you are reading this, my first post, you are probably already debating whether you have made just one more poor choice. You may be thinking, "Uggh, there goes another two minutes of my life that I will never get back." Well, hang in there, at least for a session or two. Because I promise you, at a minimum, reading my occasional blog posts will be no more harmful to your health or well-being than many of your other endeavors.
Each week (this will be a weekly blog, because anything published more frequently would require a level of effort that I am not prepared to devote) I will share my random thoughts about random topics. I never know what topic will interest me at any particular time, so there is no index, and there will be no set roll-out.
Tonight's topic is a weighty one--- namely, my own weight. When I was a senior in high school, I was 6'2" and 145 pounds. My pant size was a 29" waist and I had a 34" inch inseam. Finding the Holy Grail was an easier task than finding a pair of jeans that fit. Many years later-well, let's just say I haven't gotten any taller. But I have put on a pound, or ten, or a hundred (actually, one hundred pounds exactly). So, in other words, someone who has never been able to bench press 100 pounds in his life has eaten the equivalent of a couple of decent size barbells. But here is the really weird thing--when I walk by the mirror, I see the same skinny guy I was in high school. How is that possible? Do I live in a funhouse? Does my belly automatically suck in when it passes by a mirror? Or is there something else going on that contributes to this sad and delusional mindset?
Well, here is my two cents. Guys of a certain age (mine, or near mine) have an amazing ability to see what they want to see and to deny as "fake news" things that they do not want to acknowledge. Why? Because to accept the facts (I no longer have a 29 inch waistline, and haven't for a very long time) usually means to accept the consequences of those facts, and to accept that if you don't like those consequences, you are going to have to change your behavior. If you don't like the consequences of global warming, well you have to engage in behavior that minimizes the carbon footprint. If you don't like folks protesting in the streets, pledge to take steps that will address their grievances. And, if you don't like being overweight, consider laying off the chocolate chip cookie dough. It is so much easier to live a life in denial, to train your eyes to only see the information that your brain wants to process, because change requires understanding of the problem, a plan to fix the problem, and the commitment to see the change through. That can be a tall order-make that a very tall order, when that roll of cookie dough is staring you in the face.
So the first step, the very first step, the indispensable first step, is to open your eyes and let your eyes talk to your brain, not the other way around. When you see things as they are, you will be more open to change what needs to be changed. As for me, I am going to try to follow the sage advice of Michael Jackson in ""Man in the Mirror"- "I'm looking at the man in the mirror, I'm asking him to change his ways..."
Just keep the cookie dough well-hidden.