Wordsley, Stourbridge, England: 27 degrees, very hot, sunny and with beautiful blue skies.
It is Monday, a new week, and I feel relatively good for having a quiet weekend, which also included verbalising my feelings with Julie.
Last Friday, the eve of the weekend, I went to the doctors. I wasn’t attended by a doctor but by a nurse who was some kind of health counsellor.
My health is generally speaking OK, the only doubt being my cholesterol, and she is prescribing a medicine called Statin, which, according to Google Doctor, can have serious side effects, especially when trying to get off it.
My mother insists on arranging a phone call with the doctor to clarify my doubts. I don’t need to do this, as I know myself and I will not take it. I think that once we get used to or even dependent on taking medicines or drugs on a regular basis, it is almost impossible to get off them, and the damage has already been done.
Maybe I am set in my ways — I am old school, where the best medicine is the toughest, or hardest one, depending on what we’re talking about. Milton Friedman, the famous American economist, said, ‘There is no free lunch,’ a saying that can be interpreted in various ways.
Still, for me, the basic meaning is that there is nothing for free or easy; everything has a price which you eventually must pay!
It can also mean the difference between the cheap way out, which is not necessarily good, something superficial, and not the best, and the right way out, which, even though it is tougher and harder, offers better rewards over the long term.
Regarding my cholesterol issue, I believe that simply buying medication that can, in theory, fix the problem is the easy way out. If it works, fine, then I might neglect looking after myself, ignore my diet, and avoid exercise because the medication will essentially handle the problem for me.
And that does not consider apparent or non-apparent side effects. Suppose I am fortunate enough not to notice any side effects. In that case, that’s great, but could it be a cumulative situation where I am living on a time bomb, with what I am taking eventually becoming harmful over time? I might be getting ill without realising it, remaining unaware of it.
The medicine may solve one problem, but also cause others.
A time bomb just waiting to explode, and if I do have some side effects, is it worth taking medicine that can resolve one issue but also make me feel unwell or harm my health further, which really is not logical.
Sometimes I look at my mother and see her as a walking chemist’s with the amount of medicine she consumes daily to keep herself alive. It is very clear to me that my mother has a mentality of taking the easy way out, linked to laziness and righteousness, where, instead of changing her habits or routine, it is easier to pop a pill. Like any routine, once you get used to it, it becomes difficult to break free—pure convenience.
I am a believer of the hard, rough path, ‘There is no free lunch’, ‘no pain no gain’!
I need to change my life, routine, and habits, which should also help me become a better person. What I’m saying is that improving oneself through change is better than merely taking pills. Of course, sometimes medication is necessary, but if a more natural method exists — even if it’s more difficult or requires more effort — it is preferable.
Julie sometimes complains that I lack the willpower to stop eating once I start, which I consider a flaw. Maybe she’s right, and perhaps I need to prove her wrong. I am already active; I already do exercise, but perhaps I need to intensify it a little more. During my conversation with the nurse, it was clear that cheese—yes, cheese—is a significant part of this minor health issue.
I like cheese, but since moving in with my mother, my cheese consumption has increased significantly. This leads to another point I’ve been considering over the past month: the only situation I see as less toxic than my current one is living alone, which is primarily the psychological aspect of the problem.
Usually, when we feel more anxious, we tend to eat more, even when we’re not hungry, because eating is a form of pleasure.
When I lived in Copacabana and alone with Yasmin staying with me a couple of times a week, my diet was left up to me; if I ate crap, and I did on a few occasions, it was my choice, my fault, and I was accountable for that, but it was much less than when living with Nalva and my mother.
In both occasions, they tend to want to exaggerate by giving, supplying, and cooking food all the time. I know that food is related to love, and to cook for somebody is a form of trying to please someone, which in turn is an act of love or, easily, a compensation for a lack of love.
If someone says they do not want to eat, but the other person ignores their wish and continues insisting on supplying that food, when does that act of love become toxic due to a lack of respect? I think that it is a serious and prevalent factor in my mother’s case and a little in Nalva’s.
But what if it is the nature of all loving women to want to fill their men, their partners, with food as an act of love, or in the same case, is a form of compensation that, in turn, is a way of slowly killing their partner?
Did my mother slowly kill my stepfather, Roger, who died prematurely of bone cancer, which may be in the future, science will come to discover and confirm that our eating habits are related to such a disease. We already know that overeating is harmful to us and toxic.
I have put on at least 6 kilos since I have been living in England, now it is time to get rid of it, and if I am to stay in England and have a healthy lifestyle, I will need to change my habits, more specifically my eating habits, improve my routine and lifestyle and be able to say ‘No’ to temptation.
I have already decided that I will not take ‘Startin’, nothing against people who have taken it and who are, but I just do not want to go down that road, I want to take the other road that goes up into the mountains where the air is cooler, cleaner and healthier. The trees are greener and lush, and I can feel the breeze flowing through them, near the sky and the clouds. There is no motorway, no traffic noise, no extra problems or confusion.
Just a typical day of exercise, work, long, long conversations with Julie and problem-solving.
In bed by midnight.
Thank you.
Thanks for reading this blog post. Please explore my other posts and share your thoughts in the comments section.
Richard
