A couple of years ago a Filipina friend of mine died of cancer.
She had been diagnosed with cancer years before and, through surgery and through healthy eating, she had managed to get rid of it.
Yet, once the danger was over, she resumed her previous eating habits and, before long, cancer stroke back and, after a while, she died.
It seems like the only reason why she had, temporarily, made a change in her eating habits was because of the emergency she had found herself in....had she not had cancer she would not have made that change...and, sure enough, because that change had only been motivated by a compelling emergency, once the emergency was over, the change didn't stick.
In other words the temporary change was made out of "desperation" rather than "inspiration".
I have been eating healthy food for 10 years now and I have lost more or less 40 kg, I have plenty of energy, I never catch the flu and all of my inflammations are history.
Did I change my eating habits before a doctor told me that I had a disease? No, I didn't have any diseases.
So why did I change?
One day, while I was on vacation at my mother's summer house a plumbing problem occurred and my mother asked my uncle, who used to be a plumber, to come by and fix the problem.
I hadn't seen my uncle in years and I didn't know how old he was nor that he was still working as a plumber. When he told me that he was 81 years old I was shocked!
But what really amazed me is the fact that, not only does he still work, but, after working, he comes home and goes out at sea by canoe and he does so almost every day! After working at age 81!
What's his secret? What he calls a diet that is mostly "liquid", meaning that he eats vegetables and fruit much more than he eats starches.
That encounter "inspired" me to make a change and, because I wanted to age the way my uncle is aging, I started eating "liquid" even though I didn't have any particular emergency to deal with: I acted out of "inspiration" and not "desperation".
Acting out of desperation means: "I love eating sweets but I can't because the doctor said I can't"....which almost sounds like: "I wish I could cheat on my wife but I can't because the Bible says I can't"...or something like: "I wish I could overspeed but I can't because the police is around".
As long as one desires the thing he/she shouldn't be doing and the only thing holding him/her back is an emergency, a possible trouble etc he/she will end up doing that thing.
But if one's desire for the positive outcome that will result from a good habit is stronger than engaging in that bad habit the bad habit will dissolve automatically.
I would love to drink beer every day and eat a bucket of ice cream, but my desire to become like my uncle is way stronger so, whenever the desire for bad food arises, it simply goes away when I dwell on how great it will feel to be 81 years old and still be able to work and produce! I am INSPIRED!
Another thing that characterizes real change is "structural" change instead of a change in "content".
Somebody says: "I have lost plenty of weight", "great, how did you do that?", "well, each time I feel the urge to eat I light up a cigarette"....wow, what a change! He us simply replacing the "content" of his addiction with some other content but he is not addressing the structural problem of his psyche that is wired to look for instant gratification.
So the bottom line is that, in order to make a change that sticks, we must get INSPIRED rather than DESPERATE and not just replace the CONTENT of our weaknesses with some other content.
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