Fat and Unhappy

Pic from www.managersrealm.com

America is fat. There is no doubting the legitimacy of that statement.  You can make it more politically correct and easier to swallow if you use terms like; obese, large, big-boned, fluffy, or pleasantly plump.  I am a “large” part of this statistic.  Five years ago I was a paratrooper in the 82^nd Airborne.  Now, for several reasons, I am overweight by over a hundred pounds.  I don’t like being big.  Some “experts” say, “If you aren’t happy when you are fat, you won’t be happy when you are skinny.”  To that I say, “Bull-Butter!”  Being large affects your self-esteem, confidence, moods, and can cause depression.  I am not talking about being happy with your appearance.  You can be large and be happy with your appearance.  But you can’t be large and be happy with joint pain, heart disease, diabetes, and the countless other diseases and disorders associated with obesity.  I have forgotten what is like to walk up a flight of stairs and not need oxygen and a defibrillator once I reached the top.  Being fat is hard physically and emotionally.  Anyone who says different is creating a delusion to give themselves some peace of mind about there current condition.

Skinnies (those who aren’t gravitationally challenged) like to say stupid things like, “You just need to put the fork down.”  Or, “Get of the couch and go do some exercise.”  If only it were that easy.  People can become overweight for several reasons, many of which are beyond their control.  The problem is the cycle you find yourself in.  I am lazy because I am overweight, and I am overweight because I am lazy.  That is a difficult cycle to break.  It takes lots of will power and support from family and friends.  It doesn’t take ignorant comments from people who don’t understand what you are going through.  They haven’t felt your fatigue, depression, pain, and despair.  They haven’t tried a million diets, pills, and exercise routines only to fall back into the clutches of their food addiction.

The bottom line is that it is hard out there for a fat guy.  Every where you go, there is food.  I live in the small town of Searcy, Arkansas.  My town covers about five square miles.  In those five square miles lie 61 eating establishments, not counting grocery stores, coffee shops, and candy stores.  We are constantly flooded with temptation.  We are bombarded with advertisements on billboards, television, radio and our computer.  We even get them in the mail.  Could you imagine trying to recover from a heroin addiction and have this kind of exposure, accessibility, and temptation?  Imagine if drug dealers had a drive-through.  McDonald’s, Burger King, White Castle, Wendy’s, and all others like them are drug dealers to fat people.

For all my fellow gravitationally challenged people out there, don’t quit trying.  The only way you can fail is to quit.  You can do it!  I have a paratrooper hiding somewhere inside this squishy exterior.  I just have to dig him out.  A good way to do that is P90X.  I haven’t been doing it long, but it is working.  It is hard, but it is worth it.  Find some good friends to help support you in your journey to conquer your food addiction and obesity.   Never give of up hope and never quit.

Finally, for all you skinnies out there, keep the dumb comments to yourself.  If you have a friend who is struggling with there weight, you support them.  Get behind them and encourage them.  Lift them up, don’t tear them down.  It is hard, really hard to be overweight.  Let’s all work together and make America healthy again.

Moral Schizophrenia

What is right and what is wrong?  How do we tell the difference?  Americans no longer have a true-north in which to orient their moral compasses to.  This is because we are now morally schizophrenic.  We are in fact “hearing voices.”  We suffer from an onslaught of influence from several difference sources, none of which are in agreement.  One voice tells us to, “Eat this.”   Another voice tells us to, “Believe this.”  Yet others are shouting at us saying, “Wear this, drink this, love this, hate this, smoke this, BE this!”  Which voice are we to listen to?  Who determines what is right and wrong?  Who determines what is good and what is bad or evil? 

For a very long time, the answer to that question was God and the Bible.  The Ten Commandments used to hang in our court rooms.  Bible passages are still painted all over Washington D.C. and her memorials.  But that is no longer the Americans “True-North.”  The Bible is no longer what we use as a moral compass.  My question to society is this, “If not the Bible, what do we now use as the standard of right and wrong?”  Some would say Ala or Buddha, which aren’t bad sources.  The Qur’an teaches some good ideas on this subject.  Buddhism also teaches some pretty peaceful ideas itself.  But religion as a moral compass is on the decline in America. 

The postmodern answer to this question is, “Society determines right and wrong.”  That is ludicrous.  Some societies believe it is right, good, and just to pin down and strip naked an adolescent girl and perform a female circumcision of sorts with a piece of broken glass.  Other societies and cultures practice cannibalism.  We cannot accept those things as right and good.  The next statement of the postmodern is usually, “Well, we let our society determine what is right for us.”  That brings me back to my opening statements.  What voice in our society are we to listen to?  Is it the Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, or Atheist?  Is it the Republican or the Democrat?  The fact of the matter is that society has lost touch with right and wrong.  Morality is now like the wind.  It is hard to see, explain, or grasp. 

Whether or not you believe as I do in God or the Bible, we can agree on one thing.  If we are going to make the world a better place, if we need a true-north to set our moral compasses to, the biblical teaching of “love your neighbor as you love yourself” is a pretty good place to start. 

 

Picture from studyhealth.com

The Widow Who Defied Mediocrity

I know of an elderly woman who isn’t your stereotypical grandmother.  Most individuals, male and female alike, would be happy to retire in a nice home with a nice retirement check.  The American standard is to spend your “Golden Years” vacationing and lounging.  After all, you did earn it.  But this widow has a different plan.  Instead of retiring to a rocking chair on the back porch, she is defying mediocrity and the status quo.  She will be boarding a plane to Africa in a couple of months to spend her retirement toiling with all her might to make the World a better place.

It is hard to imagine a widow in her late sixties going off into the bush of Africa to change/save the world.  Her defiance should be a standard for all of us.  We get so caught up in what we are “supposed to be doing” that we forget to even imagine the possibilities of greatness and goodness.  We are supposed to get married, get a career, get some kids, send the kids to college, retire and die.  What a terrible existence that we are so easily drawn into.  This culture and society sucks people into mediocrity.  Unless we defy that mediocrity just like the widow has done, we and this world are doomed to normality.  Normality sounds pretty good at first, but the problem with normality is that it is full of people who are depressed, starving, addicted, and homeless.  It is full of war and genocide.  Thus, normality is like a disease and our imagination and empowered decisions to change are the cure. 

Challenging the Status Quo

The most comfortable place in the world is a rut.  If we stop moving for one second, if life loses the tiniest fraction of inertia, we quickly will find ourselves entrenched in a “just getting along” way of life.  This can happen anywhere on the scale of the existence of humankind.  This phenomenon can take place with the individual, the family, the state, the nation, or the whole World.  It is so easy to quit the struggle of improvement that we often find ourselves simply surviving.  Our dreams of a better existence are tossed aside and bulldozed by the daily grind that life can sometimes become. 

America and the World need to begin to dream again.  We need to challenge the status quo at every level and at every turn.  We can no longer accept mediocrity in our government, economy, or education system.  We must dream of better and demand it from each other.  Not just our government, but our churches must begin to carry their weight.  A strong majority of Americans believe in a benevolent God who requires them to feed the poor, bind up the injured, and heal the sick.  There is no good reason that over a million homeless people will sleep on the streets of America this very night.  The fact that people are starving to death in a card board box while wasting away from some kind of addiction is a sad mark against all of us: Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Atheist alike.  We must get out of this rut of fighting over the issues while the Earth burns to the ground around us.

We must not accept things as they are any longer.  We must begin to wonder why things are the way they are and not only begin to change them but begin to improve them.  We have the brainpower and the manpower to alleviate much, if not all, of the World’s suffering.  From prostitution to polar ice caps, it is our calling as human beings to fix what is wrong and make this World a better place, but we cannot do it without first challenging the status quo.