“I have become comfortably numb” – Pink Floyd

This is post #17 in my quest for 30 in 30.

Yesterday I wrote about attending a lecture given by raw food athlete Tim VanOrden. During the lecture he spoke about peoples desire to “numb themselves down” with food and alcohol.

We’ve all been there and we’ve all done it. I know that I do it more often than I’d like. We have a really tough day or go through a stressful experience and when we get home we eat a lot of fatty foods or have a few drinks to make the stress of the day disappear. This essentially numbs our brains so that we don’t have to think too much about what is going on in our lives at the moment. At least, that’s the effect we’re going for whether we realize it or not. It’s why stress eaters eat and drinkers drink or in extreme cases why the really really depressed tend to not even bother getting out of bed. There is an aversion to being in the “real world” and dealing with any of the problems that exist in it.

One of the things that take some getting used to when you start living your life according to a higher standard is just how real the real world can be. This is not a bad thing that is to be avoided or numbed out however. Actually, just the contrary. The real world is very real, very alive and very amazing. The real world offers solutions to any perceived problem that you could encounter and for the record, that’s all problems are… perceived. (Check out this great article on the reality of our “problems” by Craig Wildenradt at bloomverse.com). When you have high standards of living you are able to see your way through any problem because often times nothing but the best solution is an option for you. You simply won’t accept anything less. When your life is about choosing to be the best, you have no need to avoid it if it’s less than perfect. You want to be as aware of what’s going on around you as possible. You want to take on the challenges of your life head on.

One thing to always be aware of is that you are the only one who controls your life. You and no one else. Numbing yourself doesn’t make the problems disappear. It simply makes you less willing to care about them for a short period of time. When that time is up though, the problem is still going to be there. In fact, it’s probably going to have grown a little while you were gone. The big bad things we call problems don’t numb themselves. they don’t take breaks and they don’t do anything to avoid you like you avoid them. They’re like zombies that just keep coming. They’re numbers keep growing and they just get hungrier. The only way to handle a zombie is to take off it’s head. Remove the head and the rest just falls. This is the best tactic for taking on life too. You want to attack it. You want to find anything that you think is a problem and take off it’s head before it has a chance to hurt you. Problems, like zombies, tend to multiply if left alone for too long. That’s why you want to deal with them while they’re small and their numbers are few. You just can’t do that if you’re checking out at the end of the day or avoiding your life all together. If you want to live the best life you possibly can you need to do just that, LIVE. Look for those problems and cut of their heads while it’s still early.

In Tim VanOrden’s lecture he talked about his response to a situation that any of us who eat alternatively to the Standard American Diet (SAD) deal with. Friends invite you to go to the bar for a drink and to get some food. You don’t drink though and you don’t eat anything that they do or that the bar serves. When you decline, 9 times out of 10 you’re going to hear “C’mon, live a little”. I’ve heard it myself more times than I can remember. Tim had one of the best responses I’ve ever heard and that I’ll be adopting from here on out for this situation. He simply says “If you want to live a little, then go ahead but I want to live a lot”. Those zombie like problems are just going to keep getting stronger and hiding from life won’t make them go away. It’s only going to get worse if you try to hide. So live… a lot. Attack your problems before they multiply and remember to aim for the head.

Thanks for being here. Talk to you tomorrow.
-JB
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Today’s Music: Comfortably Numb
By: Pink Floyd
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