Our Comfortable Culture

In the past week I have thrown up three times. I am not bulimic. I am not sick. Quite the contrary, I am actually getting more healthy.

I hired a personal trainer and I am finding the physical limits my body can take.

It’s been apparent to me that I have lived a very comfortable existence for much of my 43 years. I had a good paying job. I was single. I ate what I wanted. I chose comfortable things to do like playing video and card games over exercising and eating healthy. Living comfortably was more important than living healthy.

Here is what I have learned. The only way to know your limits is to “find” your limits. Find out what you are capable of. I wonder exactly how many people do this. I speculate that people don’t know how useful this practice is.

I also speculate this is because our culture is so focused on being comfortable. To live with discomfort is so foreign to people. We feel entitled to comfort. Something is wrong or un-natural if we aren’t comfortable. I’ve come to find the whole thing so interesting. I’ve begun to notice the conversations I’ve had with people when I talk to them about some concern I’m struggling with, like my body. For those who think and act with their body as a concern, they listen. I can have a real conversation with them about different strategies I can employ to provide a more meaningful impact. For those who don’t think and act with their body as a concern, they look at me with incredulity and tell me how great I look. It’s as if they think I have a self-esteem problem because I feel a need, finally, to do something about my body at the ripe old age of 43. I speculate its because misery loves company. People getting healthy makes the unhealthy very uncomfortable.

Share it