Reinvention

This is the day that people get "honest" and loud about all the things that they can't stand about themselves any longer: "No more fat ass! No more smoking! No more McDonalds!" and then they go and claim that they are finally going to light it all on fire, burn it down, and reemerge from the ashes a brand new person, free of vices. Does anyone take resolutions serious any longer? Does anyone nod their head in reassurance when their listening to people say this stuff, and really believe deep down that they will actually follow through? Resolutions are just a bunch of things people say, feel better once they're said, and then continue living with their list of burdens, and fears, and bad situations. So why all the failure? Why do so many of these well intended resolutions fall apart and bad habits carry on?

I think it's because of all the spankings and time outs.

When we were kids if we did something wrong, we were punished immediately. On the spot. You cannot do that. Spank. Smack. Sit down. Shut up. Time-out. You're wrong. Grounded. No car. No phone. No allowance. Move out.

So now as adults when we do something wrong or harmful to ourselves, and the only punishments are whispers of risks of long term health effects, and potentially losing loved ones fed up with our vices and habits, that isn't immediate enough. There is no immediate consequence. We need the spankings and time outs on the spot. We need to be grounded. We need the cheeseburgers, and beers, and smokes smacked out of our hands. Think about it. What would Super Nanny say to you if she heard you keep giving your kids "just one more chance." She will tell you that you're a terrible parent and that your kids will keep being naughty. Our bodies give us so many chances, and so we abuse it. Just one more chance.

I know I am being ridiculous and pushing the humor here, but there is a little bit of a real deal point in all of this. People really don't have the mind set that being unhealthy has an immediate effect on them.

Maybe there needs to be a penalty system put in place, submitting resolutions would be more like a binding magical contract with the universe, and if you make the claim of undoing something shitty about yourself on New Years Eve, you are bound to do so the following year. So if you profess to quit smoking in 2011 and then continue to smoke, you would get punished. Maybe the punishments were that you lose something that you love every time you smoke. It would start out small, like your favorite T-shirt, and then a fond memory, or maybe your dog or cat. Or what if you received a new deep set wrinkle around your mouth with every puff, if you actually violated your resolution and smoked a whole cigarette your mouth would look like an ol' irritated butt-hole by the end of it. Honestly, would anyone dare to keep smoking? I don't think so. So maybe we need a little magic in 2011 to give these resolutions we make a chance to carry through. How can we convince ourselves that the real actual penalties are severe enough and real enough to follow through? Smoking gives you cancer (fact) and hurts the people around you (fact). That isn't real enough? You have to be faced with instant results like a butt-hole for a mouth? The commercials with the shriveled up black lungs and the weezing dude with the hole in his throat isn't real enough? Why does instant butt-hole mouth sound scarier than maybe getting cancer?

I have to stop and admit that this is me yelling at me. I am a resolution breaker. I do it every single year. I am the asshole that keeps smoking in waves. I will quit for months at a time, 6 months of nothing, and then weeks of puffing away. So this morning on NYE I actually have the nerve to say, "I'm done smoking" and it made me mad, because I know I am full of shit. I will smoke in 2011. I know this, because I know myself. There will be a point where I justify doing it, where I know that I can go months at a time without it, so I think because I don't smoke a pack a day it isn't hurting me. This makes me an idiot. A huge one. I know if I was faced with the possibility of butt-hole mouth I would never smoke again.

I'm also about 30 lbs overweight and really in terrible shape. I thought I was going to die playing one of these new fangled "healthy just as good as playing outdoors" video games on the Kinect. I mean I was sweating and breathing heavy, and red faced. So I am all: "This is the year. This is the year I get in the best shape of my life." I couldn't even believe it when I was saying it. So I drove to McDonalds and bought a giant bag of food and ate it for lunch. I kept taking bites and thinking, man this tastes terrible, and I feel terrible, and then I would be like Oh My GOD these fries are ridiculous, I LOVE them, how could I NOT eat you ALL the time.

So now I am thinking... geez if I think losing 30lbs is impossible, what about the people that need to lose 100?! I mean how do they feel? I have seen TV shows where people are told by Doctors that they are going to die, and people still keep eating terrible and not exercising. So even with the prognosis of death, it does not prove to be motivation enough. What happened? When did eating a slab of ribs in a bucket become more appealing than living? When did we get convinced that eating that bucket of food WAS living? Maybe the bigger question isn't why are people bigger than ever, maybe we need to figure out how to make life more appealing. Worth living. 3-D television and hacking your Kinect to play World of Warcraft isn't going to convince people to stop eating bags of chips for breakfast and sucking down 2 liters of sugar water. If there truly is a movement to make America heathy again, I am thinking we need to fix the message. It isn't enough just to say-- We have to be healthy because we want to live longer, I think we need to fix the message about what "living" really is. It can't just be about buying shit all the time, the thrill of owning a bunch of stuff isn't enough.

For me this year in 2011 I am going to focus on what it means to live this life. To be alive. I want to reinvent what living means to me. This may require a bubble. I think a great start is to never read the comment section of CNN articles ever again. Maybe if I figure out how to find some hope in the future, the rest of the bad habits will fall away. who knows. Maybe the only wild frontier we have anymore is our own courage. Riding off to the Wild West, is nothing more than being brave enough to believe that things are going to be okay, that things will get better for everyone. Be brave in 2011.

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