Responsibility? What's that?

Personally responsibility seems to be a concept that either died on us or ditched us for greener pastures.

Time to piss some people off. Sorry. I will keep this post focused as much on health and fitness and as little on politics as possible. My commentary is meant to be less on whichever yahoo is in office and more on us as a population.

This past week, I have heard a ridiculous amount of rhetoric bounced off me about “change”. Not just courtesy CNN but mostly by family, friends and co-workers. The conversation usually goes something like this:

Excited person: “Oh man, this change is going to be great!”, “I can’t wait for the change”, “This change is going to be awesome”.

Me: “Oh really? Cool… what change? What are you going to do different?”

Excited person: “Well, we have a new president in office now. Its a new age!”

Me: “But what are YOU going to change? What is going to be different for YOU?”

Excited person: …Blank stare…

My favorite definition of insanity is “repeating the same actions expecting different results”.

It seems to me that we are in an age where everyone is looking for a handout.People are looking for increased social welfare benefits, corporations are looking for bailouts… almost everyone wants something and the blame is almost never their own.

This holds true in health and fitness as well.Its not my fault I am fat… it is McDonald’s fault, it is my family’s fault, I can’t afford to eat healthy, it is my gene’s fault (my favorite), I don’t have time to exercise or eat right. Do any of these sound familiar? It is either that or everyone is looking to medicine or science for the anti-fat drug or pill, aka the easy way out. Well its time that we as individuals take some responsibility for our own health. The government cannot put restrictions or taxes on our genes nor can they punish your DNA for making you fat. We as individuals need to take personal responsibility for ourselves. WE need to make healthy choices. We can not always expect those choices to be made for us… hear that FDA? Lets turn this trend around and do what WE can to impact a change.

The movie WALL-E was a brilliant social commentary on almost exactly this. We can’t put all of our trust in a company or a political figure or a government body… we need to shoulder some of that burden as well. Let me start by saying, it was MY fault I was overweight.

What can YOU do to effect change in your and others health and wellbeing? We will save the political arguments for other blogs. (PLEASE save the potlitical arguments for other blogs).

Image courtesy Despair.com

Where does “I can’t” come from?

Chances are if you are living primally or healthily, you have heard the phrase “I CAN’T live without bread” or “I COULDN’T live without my sugar fix”.

Fact: Its a darn good thing that our ancestors COULD or we would probably be pretty extinct right about now.

The bottom line is that yes… you CAN.

At some time during the development of our society, people began saying “I CAN’T” instead of “I WON’T”. There is a difference. My theory in this shift is that saying “I WON’T” admits a certain amount of personal responsibility where as “I CAN’T” does not make you take any ownership. We hate responsibility don’t we? The thought that we are responsible for our health and fitness and the way we live our life? Novel. Try it. Think about a time you have said “I CAN’T” or the next time you catch yourself saying “I CAN’T” and think to yourself if “I WON’T” might be more fitting.

Anyways, back to the task at hand. Now that we have determined that most anyone CAN, am I saying that everyone should or CAN for that matter go 100% healthy or primal immediately? Not by any means. I am saying lets focus not on what you CAN’T or WON’T do but on what you CAN do.

For Example:

You probably CAN survive your next lunch without that soda. Or you probably CAN do without the triple fudge chocolate cake your co-worker offers you. You probably CAN pass on that second trip to the pasta bar. You probably CAN avoid putting the croutons on the salad.

Take it one step at a time. Back off slowly. Do one thing that you CAN do and then do another. Before you know it you will be more healthy than you COULD have ever imagined and it will have been easier than you would have thought.