Do What You Hate The Most

How do we get by in life?  Have you ever thought about it?  If you ask anyone on any given day, “What do you really want to do today”, the answer would rarely be, “Eat some raw broccoli!” 

Of all the choices that we have in a given day as to what to do, the top ones would rarely be, go to the dentist, take my vitamins, go to the gym, do the taxes, call that upset customer, reformat the hard drive, or clean the house. 

So why do we do these things?  Simply put, we do them because they are good for us.  These mundane, annoying, terrifying, boring, or painful choices are required to continue doing the other things that we really want to do.  They keep us healthy, out of legal trouble, make money for us, or make our lives more efficient in the long run. 

For the most part, we’re even pretty glad we did them later.  I may fuss about going to the gym.  But afterwards, I’ll be sure to tell you how hard I worked and how good it was to sweat.  Yet next time, I will still fuss about going to the gym.  There’s some sick cycle involved here. 

There is in fact some hideous correlation between the things we hate the most and the things that are the best for us.  Science and psychology can speculate all they want about our mothers and why we are so dysfunctional, but it still doesn’t answer the question of why we despise what’s good for us.  Evolutionists have a hard time explaining why nature didn’t select people who preferred the taste of spinach over sugar that is bad for us. 

The only thing I can figure out is that there must be some sort of natural self-destruct mechanism in the human brain, and we are born with it.  The first thing most of us did in this world was to scream our bloody heads off.  We had no idea why.  It just seemed appropriate at the time.  There could have been some hungry animal around the corner for all we knew.  Yet being completely helpless, blind, and darned tender and tasty, we choose to scream our whereabouts to the world around us.  No other animal smarter than a chicken does this, and you see where they are in the food chain. 

Things don’t get any better either.  Attempt to feed a 6 month old child one spoonful of orange squash and one of butterscotch pudding, and then look down to see which one you are wearing.  Give a teen a choice between a McFat sandwich and a veggie sub and most will choose the M version.  Most adults will choose watching CSI over playing tennis.  It’s all the same.  We naturally tend to gravitate to those choices that are bad for us.

Since most of our last choices are out best choices, here’s my theory:  If you make a list of all the things you hate to do and then do this list every morning, you will be a much happier person.  Okay perhaps “happier” isn’t the correct term.  Perhaps it’s just that you will live longer.  On the other hand, perhaps it will just seem like it.  That could be true too.

There are some truths to be pulled from this whole concept.  We often don’t do these things until we absolutely have to, and in many cases, ignoring these issues has made life tougher. 

Getting back in shape after the heart attack is certainly no easier than doing so before one.  Losing the weight before the knees goes only makes sense.  Taking time off of work to relax and enjoy life before the doctor tells you that you are in trouble is good thinking.  Going through colon cancer is far tougher than it would have been to eat that raw broccoli every day.  And 10 days of wanting to rip your hair out quitting smoking is far better than when they have to rip out one of your two defunct lungs as you are inducted into the electric scooter brigade.

If you don’t think these things will get this far or happen to you, just look down at your arm for a second.  See that age spot?  When you were 25 years old, you weren’t going to get those either.

Hopefully, this is where maturity kicks in.  Like most of us, you probably had to eat your brussel sprouts as a child.  You learned that if you saved them till last when they were all cold and icky, it was far worse than if you ate them first.  But when it has to be done, it has to be done, so why not get it over with, right? Most of the time it’s a good thing to quit complaining and just eat your creamed squash to get it over with, and then you can get on with the pudding.  The funny thing about it is that after eating the icky stuff, the sweet stuff often tastes even better, and you feel much better about having done the thing that is good for you.  You have bragging rights!