Do you have a body? Then read this

Many people watch their body deteriorate over time, lamenting the good old days and casting aside the changes as a simple aging process, forgetting to take ownership and accountability for their actions and inactions towards their body.

Some of us don’t even take the time to really explore our body. Some of us don’t even run, ever. We may not ever reach above our head, some of us avoid stairs, and we search the parking lot for the closest spot when we’re perfectly capable of walking.

We’re wired for incredible things but we use a fraction of it. Sit and stand, walk, and sit again. Some people’s greatest bodily strain happens when they throw an ‘h’ into one of their sits.

When our strenuous lifestyle prompts pangs of hunger, we reach for whatever is easiest and most convenient. When our cholesterol or blood pressure gets out of whack, we find a pill to address the issue, trying to cover up decades of poor food choices and lack of exercise.

We think of ourselves as an advanced culture, yet we allow our food system to be run by large corporations that have no concern for our health. Their concern is profit margin and doing whatever they can to increase it—and that means fucking with your food with whatever means possible.

We like to think we’re in control and these are choices we’re making. But we are really just moving in accordance to the habits we have set and the culture we have been indoctrinated into and the radio stations and news sources we have chosen to tune into.

Don’t forget the large advertising budgets corporations have. Maybe the reason we are all obsessed with the quick fix is because we’ve all been sold on the idea over the course of decades. Get rich quick! Lose fat fast! Take this pill and get an erection!

Think about it. We’re so evolved that we use a pill to procreate. Somewhere, you have to see a lot of humor in this.

Increasingly we look towards science to tell us what is right, but science has been infiltrated by the same forces that have corrupted our food supply. You only have to look at the wild claims that climate scientists recently made to understand that it’s not objectivity dictating results, but cash flow, political pressure, and number tricks.

We already had this stuff figured out, long ago. Guess what? People were strong and lean long before we had exercise machines. We understood how the food we put into our body affected us. But then, culturally speaking, we got lazy. We all wanted an easier way out, and—thank god!—there are plenty of things we can buy to give us an illusion of an easy way out. China sends its thanks.

How often we do this, as the ages pass, the knowledge unfolds and we forget it…only to rediscover it many centuries later. We have these little mini-cycles in our lives, too. We figure it out for awhile and then get complacent.

Getting back to the beginning: we have this body. A gift. The gift of life. If we don’t take care of it, it’s a liability. It’s something we have to drag around with us wherever we go. Or something that we have to have someone else help us to drag around.

Start making some real choices—not the ones you’re being told to make by the TV and the latest “scientific” study:

• Get rid of soda.
• Get rid of all the packaged crackers, chips, cookies, and whatever else has an ingredient list filled with things you can’t pronounce.
• Buy a few more vegetables when you go to grocery store—and eat them.
• Stop looking for instant progress.
• Make small choices that are better than the ones you made before.
• Get a little bit of exercise each day.
• Go for walks.
• Admire nature.
• Sit and do nothing every now and then.
• Cultivate good friendships.
• Remember that the stuff being peddled today as the latest and greatest will seem as ridiculous as the belief that the sun revolved around the earth does to us now.
• Don’t forget to laugh at our goofiness along the way.

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