Sweet, Boggling

The Boyfriend asked me to tell him what I plan to do tonight, once I've decided. I usually tell him, but he has never asked me to before. It's like one of those accidental things you do while visiting a remote island -- we drank from the same golden coconut on the night of the full moon. Does this mean we're married now?

Today I am boggled by the difficulty I have with doing something everyday. I want to write in my journal everyday because I feel sooooo much less anxious than usual when I do. And I'm thinking about all the times I wanted to do simple things like stretch my hamstrings everyday, but could never remember, or was too lazy. It's very weird to me.

Of the dumb articles CNN has been posting lately, today I read the dumbest one yet. It encourages you to get a job in the hospitality industry. Four of the ten jobs they mention make $21,000 or less per year. Forward this article to all your enemies now! It also mentions several hospitality jobs that earn good money, but they all require skills that are marketable in many industries. Summary: This is not news.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/worklife/01/23/hospitality.jobs/index.html

The dumbest CNN article ever was a list of skin products for men, and the details of how those products prevent skin cancer. Cute, fine, whatever, but the article also included the brands and prices of the skin products to use. In the movies it's called product placement. What's it called when it's in the news?

Growed Up

I'm thinking about all the time I spent when I was a teenager worrying about how I look. Because now that I'm a grown up, it's really amazing how un-important it is to occasionally show up at work looking exhausted or having a bad hair day.

Whenever I complained when I was a kid my parents would tell me that it would be much worse when I was an adult. I didn't believe them, and now that I'm grown up, I disagree with them. I see their point. There are certainly things about it that are way more complicated than anything I dealt with as a kid. They just didn't know me very well. They didn't know how much I value my independence, or how I thrive in an environment where no one is yelling. Or how much pain my obsession with my appearance was causing me.

The voluntary simplicity movement has made a big impact on me enjoying adulthood. My participation is pretty minimal but just knowing that I have the option to participate more gives all my hard work a terrific sense of being optional. I don't feel stuck. When work is stressful, I don't think, "I wish I didn't have to work." Instead I think, "This sucks but it pays for the lifestyle that I enjoy soooooo much."

Ever Available

Perfectionism is an ever available excuse for failure.

May imperfection be my new love.

I came to revel in imperfection one day. I was so tired of beating up on myself before I'd even begun. It was one of those desperate moves, but once I'd leapt, the new ground felt like rolling around naked in a pile of money, dirty, pleasurable, taboo.

A new crazy

Orthorexia is being obsessed with healthy eating to an unhealthy degree. Persons suffering from this obsession can get so obsessed they become malnourished. It starts out innocently, eating healthier, but instead of being satisfied with a reasonable degree of healthfulness, they keep striving for healthier and healthier, more and more pure or whatever, until it's all they think about.

For over a year I didn't have anything even vaguely junky to eat that I wasn't allergic to. I was so happy when I finally got a junk food back, potato chips. It was definitely a fork in the road. I considered the possibility that it would be healthier to never eat junk food again. But I felt so deprived all the time. I decided it was saner to eat the chips.

I believe strongly that there is such a thing as healthy enough.

I got a few sour faces in my direction while jubiliantly chattering on about potato chips. Like a, "but potato chips aren't healthy" face. It felt like they were disappointed that I was failing to be "perfect" in my pursuit of health.

Then, I got more junk food back (avocado, more fruit, coffee, more nuts, bacon). Then I did some emotional eating related to other health problems. And I gained two dress sizes, going from a size 6 to a size 10. And several of the people I mentioned it to were shocked that I didn't intend to diet it off. I had stopped the emotional eating. In my mind the problem was solved already. Why would I diet back down to size 6? It seems kind of crazy to think like that.

So here is my new theory, and it's based on this experience plus hundreds of other experiences I had on my journey to healthy-enough.

It is an unrealistic goal is to make massive diametrical changes to myself. But if I dislike myself so much that only a diametrical change would make me like myself, then smaller, realistic goals are not worth the effort. But unrealistic (unattainable) goals, don't motivate me to change, so I was stuck.

Where does this idea come from that health and fitness must be perfect? I believe it is because self worth has become bound with health and fitness. The binding to self worth arose from the idea that a woman is only worthwhile if she's attractive, and then with the last 30 years of model culture, a woman is only attractive if she's perfect.