The Faithful Skeptic

Or is it just a matter of willpower?
Michael Toy has written a great post that (among other things) talks about his struggle with his weight. I'm in the same boat. I'm overweight and I know what I need to do to lose weight. I need to: 1) exercise more 2) eat less. Why is it so hard to do these things? Why is it such a struggle to do those things that we know we need to do?

This makes me think of my daughter Claire. She is four months old on Saturday. She is an incredible, delightful, beautiful person. But she has a little problem - when she's tired she doesn't like to go to sleep. She has a distinctive "tired" cry that is more of a cross between moaning and crying. She knows that she's tired. She knows that she needs to sleep. But she doesn't want to. Sarah and I like to think that she doesn't want to miss anything. She's been doing this since she was a couple of weeks old. Sometimes we can rock her to sleep. Sometimes not.

This makes me wonder - is this part of the human condition? Is there something hard-wired into our DNA that makes us resist doing the things we know we should do? Is this the curse of independence? Or the blessing? Maybe that we have to choose to do what is right or good is not just what makes us human, it is how we are human. The act of choosing and agonizing over choosing is one of our major avenues for personal, intellectual, and spiritual growth. If we were made to always do the right thing, maybe we wouldn't be as interesting. Skinnier perhaps, but less interesting.

posted by Brian @ 1:24 PM