Today is a magical day. You’ve found a token, an amazingly rare, once in a lifetime, use it now or it’s gone token that will allow you to change one thing, and only one thing, in your life. You can alter that thing to be however you want it to be from this day forward without any repercussions. What will it be?
It’s really hard. How do you choose one thing only?
The obvious response is to circumvent the whole thing by wishing for money. If I had lots and lots of money then I could change lots of different things in my life. I could quit my job and travel the world and meet fabulous people and have amazing experiences. I could buy a beautiful house and spend my time writing and whiling away the days. I could join a charity and help as many people as I could without ever once having to worry about how I was going to make the mortgage.
Money can do all that. It can make all those things a reality in life. It has no value in and of itself but it is a very powerful tool.
Lets be fair. The change I make, you make, it can’t be money. What then?
The next thing that pops to mind, for me anyway, is to loose weight. And lets be serious, it’s not for health reasons. It’s for reasons of success. Fat people have a very hard time succeeding in this day and age. The discrimination is rampant and very real. I’m reading a book at the moment Rethinking Thin by Gina Kolata and it’s enormously disturbing. Both because of the in depth discussions about dieting and in particular how they don’t work but also the illustrations of abuse. One women got told by her doctor that her sore throat was because she was fat and until she lost weight she would just have to suffer. Another story was of a women who was told she’d never be promoted in her job until she lost weight. When she bought it up with the union, they agreed.
I’ve done a lot of research over the last few months about fat, fat politics, food politics and food itself. The only thing I’ve really learnt is that dieting doesn’t work. In 95% of cases, at minimum. Or rather, it does, in the short term. But then it comes straight back with added weight behind it.
I’ve admitted to myself that I will never be thin. I will never, ever fit the idea of beauty. And I’m actually really OK with that. I have a man in my life who finds me sexy and attractive just the way I am now. I have goals and dreams and plans and places that I want to go and things I want to achieve and though I’m daunted by the fact that it’s going to be a little harder for me because I’m not the “right” shape I believe that excellence will prevail. I’m happy and centred and damn it, I still want to be thin!
Part of that is, well, it’s really hard to let go of a thought that I’ve held for the better part of 40 years. Part of it is shame that other people will judge based on my size. But part of it is rock solid belief that if I relax and live my life in a way that makes me happy then my body size will change as well.
So I don’t know what to change: the size of my body or the belief that it can change.
I think maybe I’ll just go with the money.
Lisa
Leave a Reply