Navel-Gazing In The Fast Lane

Ok.  So, anyone else notice the tendency to define our MORALITY in terms of the food we have eaten today?

“I was so good today - only XXXX calories!” 

 or -

“I was so bad today - I went to McDonalds!”

By this logic, we could broccolli ourselves to Dalai Lama-hood, and I can only assume Hitler must have subsisted on a diet comprised entirely of Original-Recipe-breaded-and-deep-fried Twinkies covered in cheese sauce with bacon sprinkles.

I have been pondering this, and have come to the conclusion that to say/think/teach myself to think of, and express my eating in terms of its MORALITY is a quietly destructive crutch. 

“I was bad..” subtly leads to the mindset “I AM bad.”  And as we all “know,” a bad person does not deserve to succeed, does not deserve happiness.   Not to mention that a person who defines themselves as “good” on Monday and then as “bad” on Tuesday is going to have certain difficulties establishing a strong, enduring, and accurate sense of the wealth of their true human value - and in reflecting that value in the way they support and nurture their physical, mental, and emotional self.

Furthermore, to self-define as “I am being good” or “I am being bad” is the province of children.

Children are incapable of understanding that something they do may have negative ramifications for THEM, so adults protect them by instilling the idea that doing things they have been taught are “bad will displease The Grownups, and result in (seemingly arbirtrary - to the child in question) punishment.   Jr. doesn’t really understand that blindly stepping into the road is forbidden because it may result in his DEATH - but he does understand, very clearly, that it IS somehow “bad” and that if he does run into the street Mommy or Daddy or Teacher  is likely to punish him. 

So when we smilingly announce “Oh, I am being so BAD today!” as we shovel in the hot wings or ice cream, or go out for drinks instead of going out for a walk or a run - what punishment, exactly, is it that we are hoping to AVOID?  In what way, exactly, do we think this behaviour will escape detection? What powerful authority figure is it that we are sneaking around behind?…

None, of course.

Because we are adults.  We know exactly what the real-life consequences of our choices are.

We are adults.  At the end of the day, we have to answer to ourselves for our behaviour.

We know if we step blindly into the street, we can get hit by a car.  We know if we make ridiculous eating and activity choices, we undermine the health, strength, beauty, and efficacy of our precious bodies.

I don’t know of anyone who has shown up at the office at 10:20 am in their pajamas, thrown their files on the floor, and laid down under their desk smilingly announcing “Oh, I am being so BAD today!” (…later explaining that they’ll “make it up tomorrow” by being extra professional…)

So it’s a question of whether or not we decide to bring the same level of daily purpose, direction, maturity, and accountability to our lifelong bodies that we bring to something as potentially transient as a JOB.

Eating intelligently and providing our bodies with the requisite amount of physical activity to keep them fine-tuned is NOT a question of being “good” or “bad”- it’s a question of behaving with reason.  Like the adults we are. 

I suppose we can choose to behave blindly, like a child, and conduct ourselves like unsupervised children - keeping ourselves in a rut of compulsion and regret and the mind-set that in some circumstances we are just prone to behaving “badly” and “can’t control” ourselves.

But we’re lying to ourselves (…not actually possible - only a recipe for even MORE regret and self loathing, by the way…) if we do.

Each and every day we make a million choices that value and safeguard our futures.  We behave like adults, and we ”control ourselves” in all kinds of environments. We choose NOT to do a million reckless and self-destructive things each and every day, and we don’t think a thing about it.  We certainly don’t crow about it.

I have never heard anyone say,  ”I was so GOOD today! I didn’t suddenly leap up on the pew and sing ‘Baby Got Back’ in church!”  “I was so GOOD today! I didn’t grab the cute UPS guy’s butt!”  “I was so GOOD today! I didn’t stuff an entire pot roast up my jacket and sneak out of the Hy-Vee!”  

So, why do we bother to pretend things are any different when it comes to making intelligent and reasonable eating and excercise choices?  What on EARTH does THAT pretension gain us? 

I’m sure I don’t know.

However, all of the above said, I do have it on very good authority that the Dalai Lama eats a CRAPLOAD of broccolli.