Last week, I saw a post from a college basketball coach on LinkedIn:
Interest vs Offer
If a school is interested in a student-athlete it does not necessarily mean you will get an offer. Life Lesson: Everyone that is interested in you may not have the best interest for you. They just want what you have.
I was like, “Duh, Coach…” then had to re-visit the post when, the other evening, my fiancé told me about how she had looked in a tin of fudge at work, then remembered her fitness goals, “…so, I sat down and had my raisins instead.”
Heck yeah, babe.
We launched into a discussion about the effects of junk food on human brains; how the feelings we get after consuming certain things may make us feel good, but it’s not because something good is actually happening. Chocolate causes endorphins to release, which gives us comfort. Alcohol makes us less inhibited, which is a nice escape in this uptight world. A bag of Jack in the Box (one of my faves) makes our stomachs say, “Yes, I’m full, this is good.”
But it’s all a trick. Read more at the Harvard Health Blog.
That’s because:
NOT EVERYTHING THAT DOES SOMETHING TO YOU DOES SOMETHING FOR YOU
Unfortunately, our body itself doesn’t have the ability to distinguish that the endorphins, the relaxation, the full feeling isn’t genuine. It’s all an affect.
And don’t feed me the line about how chocolate and wine are good for us. NOT IN THE QUANTITIES PEOPLE CONSUME THEM! (And that stopped being cute after the six-thousandth time some girl used it as an excuse to get wine-drunk on a Wednesday night.)
Which brings me to this point:
Beware the promotion of weak-minded reasoning, and don’t allow yourself to be removed from reality.
The idea that intention is everything has been shoved down so many peoples’ throats that they’re simply baffled when, for example, they want to lose weight, but make no dietary choices to back it up, and their desires go unfulfilled. Then, they’re disappointed and wonder why life doesn’t work out the way they want.
It’s all performance; an act millions of affected Americans perform to seem as if they’re trying to improve. So many people are trying to convince everyone else they’re doing right, and end up deluding themselves even more.
How are you going to succeed when you can’t even be honest with yourself?
Intention without action is worth about a hill of beans, and action without intention is just as ineffective. But, those are only the first two steps… there’s a third stage that seems too incredibly important to be so ignored:
PAYING ATTENTION
Choice of attention – to pay attention to this and ignore that – is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases, a man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences, whatever they may be.
W. H. Auden
Effects – the way food nourishes us, or doesn’t; how we feel when we’re around someone, and what they bring to our life; the consequences of our actions – are so divorced from the rest of our lives. Think about people you know who make bad decisions, then gripe about their lives not being the way they want. Now, realize that you do the same. Then, give yourself some tough love (note the importance of both those qualities) and start doing right by yourself.
What I mean by that is:
in the last three weeks, I’ve heard people complain about some undesirable experience… WHEN THEY COULD HAVE EASILY AVOIDED IT BY BEING MORE AWARE OF WHAT THEY WERE DOING, AND ASKING THEMSELVES IF IT WAS GOING TO HAVE A GOOD EFFECT ON THEIR LIFE. Not only am I sick of those interactions (it’s frickin bullshit – don’t waste my time and yours lamenting about something you could have controlled and didn’t), the lack of awareness & responsibility are sickening and deflating and for losers.
It brings to mind a hilarious meme of a sign that reads: “Everything happens for a reason. Sometimes, that reason is you’re stupid and make bad decisions.”
But, we’ve become such an egotistical society that people do not realize this very simple point.
There is very little attention paid to the effects of our actions, hardly any self-correction when things go wrong… and we wonder why we’re so susceptible to bad health, bad politicians, bad relationships, bad results.
