Homework Assignment

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Homework from Jeff Spoon. These pictures and those numbers above them are everything. I haven’t been perfect, not even close, and you’ll never see me aim for it either. Life isn’t perfect, and constantly setting my sights on perfection would not help me in any way. What I want, all I care about, is making every day an improvement; whether that’s by how I eat, how I move, how I respond, how I feel, how I perceive, I commit to consistently improve. I haven’t had a single week here that I’ve been 100% or 10 out of 10. But I kept trying. I keep pushing. I keep advancing. Because that’s the foundation, my bricks I’ve been laying. Let me say this: I. Don’t. Give. A. Flip: what I look like, what size I am, how much I weigh, as long as I get healthy. Period. The rest is insignificant to me. I’m here to live, to find balance, to be strong. The rest of those things don’t even spark an interest for me. It’s totally understandable that those goals motivate others, but I just want my life after coming so near to losing it. 

Jeff made a comment in the live about how it’s easier to just eat what you want when you want, that being healthy is hard. That’s only partly true. Having been down the path of that “easy” lifestyle, it’s harder than healthy. You don’t notice it at first because where it’s harder isn’t visible. Harder on your heart, your lungs, your gastrointestinal system, your liver and kidneys…and then it finally hits you—you’re strolling along that path and suddenly your body can’t do it anymore. It’s too hard on your heart to keep eating crap and carrying your weight around. Too hard on your lungs to get oxygen from poorly nourished blood making every move take your breath. Too hard on your kidneys to deal with the insulin spikes. Too hard on your joints to heave you forward while they’re inflamed and angry. The only thing an unhealthy lifestyle is easier on you is in your mind. Lazy choices, comforting choices, put-it-in-neutral choices. And then when your body finally says enough, all those easy choices turn into dread over your health, your body, and there’s not even an easy place to be anymore once your mind is overwhelmed by your body’s sicknesses and pain. 

That person on the left, she had it hard. Even the lazy, easy choice to eat junk food was taken by the collapse of her body, knowing every bite was making life harder, making her sicker, and taking time off her life. The one on the right? She’s on the easier path. Sure, she makes hard choices, but she damn sure has an easier life now. And you know what—one day those choices won’t be hard anymore either, because they’ll be her default, her normal, her comfort and stability. 

Health ain’t hard. Spending your life dying to your easy choices is hard.

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