So much of my life right now feels like I’m weeding out people who act like a victim in situations they caused.
Maybe it is unique to American culture right now. Or maybe it is bigger than that. Maybe the disease of creating your own problems and then whining about it is worldwide.
One of the most common situations is obesity.
While we shouldn’t shame someone for being obese, neither are we doing them any favors by celebrating it. The recent trend of “body positivity” has resulted in social media “influencers” who are morbidly obese, complaining about how they can’t fit into an airplane seat or on amusement rides. Those limits are for safety reasons for themselves and for other passengers.
The actor and director Kevin Smith went that route, even though he wasn’t his plan to be a fat-fluencer. He was kicked off a flight in 2010 because he couldn’t fit into his seat. Reports indicate that he was over 330 pounds at that point.
But that incident made him rethink his choices and he decided to put in the work and lost 65 pounds. But it wasn’t enough to restore him to full health.
In 2018, at age 47, he had a heart attack. It was a “widowmaker” with 100% blockage in one of his arteries. He survived the surgery and decided to change his ways. He adopted a vegan diet and is now at a healthy weight.
But he’s the rare example of someone who decided to do something about their health rather than pretend everything is fine and blame everyone else for their problems.
It is hard to watch people I know get larger and larger, and be unable to walk for more than five minutes without needing to sit down. Or they complain that their clothes don’t fit. Or that their feet hurt, so they think they need special shoes.
No – your feet aren’t designed to hold that much weight. Your body isn’t designed to operate like this.
There are sumo wrestlers who are very large – but it is mostly muscle. They train every day for hours so they are exercising along with eating large amounts of food. But people don’t realize that they live on average 10 years less than the average Japanese citizen. Many also have weight -related problems such as diabetes and knee damage that decrease their quality of life.
Many people make up excuses – they don’t have the time, or the money, or the energy. But one thing is true – if you don’t make time for your body, your body will force you to take the time by causing disease.
I know someone who is deathly allergic to cats. Yet – knowing this – she adopted a cat. And – predictably – she had to go to the ER – twice – because she was having difficulty breathing. She eventually realized she’d have to give up the cat. It wasn’t a surprise. She knew it would happen. Yet she did it anyway.
“Stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” – quote attributed to Einstein.
I knew someone who was obese and sedentary who had to have a quadruple bypass – and friends acted like it was a shock that he was so ill. They were calling for prayers for him, while I said that this was not a situation to pray about. Prayer implies that there is nothing YOU can do about the situation, so you ask for divine intervention. But being obese and sedentary isn’t an accident. It is a choice – and it is disingenuous to act like the resulting health problems are a surprise.
Thankfully he chose to eat better and exercise, and has lost a lot of weight. But the friends who were asking for prayers haven’t followed suit (they too are obese), and act surprised when their body fails them.
I don’t understand this way of thinking.
And I don’t want to be around people who act like this.
But this means I spend a lot of time alone.
I simply can’t pretend and say “Oh, that’s so sad!” when people complain after causing their own problems.
Maybe my lack of sympathy comes from the fact that my mother died from lung cancer at 53, after smoking two packs of cigarettes daily for decades. It was sad that she was sick, but not a tragedy. She had dug her own grave every single time she chose to smoke a cigarette. 40 times a day she made that choice. And because of her choosing death, I didn’t have a mother to see me graduate, or get married, or publish my first book, or learn how to do all the many things that I’ve learned since she died.
And I’m a little angry about that. And I don’t want to watch it happen again and again to people I care about.
betsybeadhead 
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