The greatest lesson you can learn in life: ‘Sucks and great are pretty close.'”
-Jerry Seinfeld 23 Hours to Kill now streaming on Netflix
“The cold hot dog served to you by an ex-con in a work-release program at a baseball game sucks, but it’s also great.”
Health also walks the line of sucks and great. Going on a run sucks, but you’ll feel great for the rest of the day. That’s why everyone that runs tells you to join them. Drinking water sucks, but people that only drink water will act like it’s the nectar of the gods. Barq’s Root Beer is great, but at 44g of sugar in just one 12 oz can, there’s a reason you might not feel great after drinking it. Sitting and binge-watching the entire season of Too Hot To Handle is great, except now it’s time to go to bed and you haven’t done anything but sit and judge 20-year-olds for 5 hours and that sucks.
What I’m getting at is that it’s ok if you don’t like healthy stuff. People that overhype healthy habits forget what makes them great. It’s not great in the moment to be mindful about your health, and you should blame your caveman brain for that.
You’ll hear wellness experts tell you to just “listen to your body” but our brains evolved from a lack of resources and life or death choices. Your brain will choose the easiest path because it’s trying to save your life. Your brain wants you to sit and conserve your energy for when a killing machine like a crocodile takes a run at you. Your brain wants you to fill up your fat stores when food is available so you have resources to rely on if a famine occurs. Your brain’s goal is to keep you alive today, not to see you thrive in the future.
If you want to do more than just stay alive at this moment, you’ll need to do things that are unappealing. You’ll need to look at the things that suck and figure out why in 10, 20, or 30 years you’ll be glad that you did it.
Making healthy choices sucks, but just trying to survive isn’t great either.