Why It Always Turns Out Okay In The End
I'll confess - we could be out of here in all of fifteen seconds, but this is not spicesuturesentence, soo it's story time!
Long ago in the not-so distant past, people would look at me and struggle to decide whether it was the 'obese' or 'morbidly obese' category I belonged to…which is a literal exaggeration, but it certainly felt that way. If you've ever been here, you know what I'm on about - the amount of food you eat is scrutinized by everyone, including yourself; you're told subtly (or not so subtly) to move your limbs a little more, shopping for clothes is kinda painful because you know you're going to have to hunt before you find something that fits (let's not even go to the question of 'like'), baggy hoodies are your best friend…this would by no means be a small list, and I'm grossly understating things here, but my headspace isn't the main point here.
The main point is what the title suggests - that it all turned out to be okay. Which in this case means that in present day, I mostly eat clean, work out fairly regularly, and, overall, things on that front are good.
Mind you, it wasn't easy.
I did get results, but they were a lot slower than even what you're told to expect. I'm not even being unreasonable here - anyone on this train knows that they wish to see a difference in one day but have to hold on for months…for me, it took years. I was probably doing some important things terribly wrong, but once again, that isn't pertinent. What is, is, that struggle was protracted, and there were a lot of years when nothing felt okay.
Today, they are - and I do feel like there was a blessing in having to keep at it for so long - not only has the duration led to the 'healthy habits' integrating completely into me, I do also like to think I now know a thing or two about grit.
This isn't me showing off or indirectly passing judgments, mind you - the beginning and end of this is seriously just this: when I see advice like 'don't drink soda', it goes right over my head because it's absolutely irrelevant to me…and I'm glad about that!
With that lens, it is easier to say that it's okay that I had all those years of struggle with self-image.
I am also aware, however, that
I didn't need that experience to adopt healthier habits. It could have happen through a much easier route.
Immunity to soda or an addiction to endorphins are not that great of achievements that I'd proclaim they validate everything.
At this point, I hope you see where this is going.
All these 'benefits' are things I've ascribed with the power of hindsight. At the time, I definitely wasn't thinking about how I was being taught a valuable lesson - heck no! At the time it was just sweat and tears that I'd constantly pray to be relieved of.
Now, though, that I'm 'out' of that situation, it's easy to come up with a list of why it was a good thing, after all.
We humans are awesome at rationalizing things that way.
Now you've seen where I was going with this?
It’s what we do. When something is happening, we'll just be caught up in it and will refuse to interpret the circumstances as anything positive (generally speaking - this is why Buddhists and the lot are smart peeps - they don’t think that hard, and interpretation is overrated anyway), but the moment it ends, because we want to justify and validate our every experience, we'll draw out those maybe-silver linings and center the whole story around those benefits.
In my case, the story would change from 'I was sad for a lot of years' to 'I was being taught the most valuable lesson ever'. The events would be exactly the same - the narrative, though…
Of course, this could also be summarized as 'nothing is absolute, and it's all just about perspective', but that wouldn't do it justice, would it? (but you see how pervasive this idea is? It's everything! In case you're wondering what I mean, check out The Most Important Article I May Ever Write)
You get me now though, don't you?
Things happen.
When they're going on, they're not okay.
When we get past them - which we eventually do, one way or another (that is, either we finally overcome the struggle, or we find a way to truly accept what we cannot conquer) - we automatically reframe said 'things' into a glorious life lesson to be thankful for.
Which I actually think is pretty cool and accords a 'yay, adaptation!' as a final remark.
Haha.
That's just my take, though. I am hella curious to know what you think, or what sense this made, if any, so if you want to drop me a line, please, make my day!
As always, thank you for reading!