colinchamp February 28, 2021 3 Comments

“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”

– Mark Twain

Being Real to Ourselves for Our Health

Nothing could be worse for us than not doing what we say. It creates an inner discomfort, and not the good discomfort , and certainly not the discomfort we should embrace. I see it with my patients and those individuals who say they want to be healthy, or worse yet, are following a healthy lifestyle – yet when we sit down and go through the details it becomes abundantly clear to us both that the latter is not the case. We can’t simply say we are being healthy; we actually have to do it. It’s what we do, not what we say – a strange concept during this time of social media domination , virtue signaling, and leading by words as opposed to actions.

Eleven years old now, but very relevant (and hilarious), perhaps the best example is Timmy Hotdog. Timmy can say what he wants, but when the doctor questions his actions, and the rubber meets the road, Timmy’s actions do not match his words. Wishful thinking perhaps, but as some point we need to come face to face with our actions.

Words and lots of them. We see it all the time, used to replace objective, tangible actions that require hard work. If you don’t want to go through the discomfort the mindset is all-too-commonly to just throw a bunch of words at it instead. We see it in all aspects of life. Want to make a good movie? Nah, just make a mediocre movie a bit confusing and then tell everyone they aren’t smart enough to understand it. How about a beautiful painting? Nah, just spend 5 minutes, paint an entire canvas red, and then use a bunch of words to describe the deep meaning of the art. Build a beautiful building? Nah, just make a concrete box and give it some esoteric meaning and description. I see it all the time in academia – brilliant people can make difficult subjects easy and described in few words, but fakers throw in a bunch of words to make simple topics seem complicated. Lots of “intersection of” and similar vague words to overshadow lack of work and effort.

Just like when my wife and I interact with and show attention to our daughter Aurelia, she could care less about what we say. For her, it’s our actions that count.

The thing is, when it’s us looking in the mirror at the end of the day, words don’t matter – actions do. We can lie to everyone else, but we can’t lie to ourselves. It just doesn’t work.

What does work is honesty, hard work, transparency, and being good to ourselves and others. Then, at the end of the day, when we look in the mirror while brushing our teeth, we can say “there is a good, hardworking, and honest person that gave it their all today.” There is no mincing of words when it comes to ourselves. There is only action. We know how many hotdogs we ate at the end of the day, regardless of what words we use to describe them.

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