“If you trust in yourself … and believe in your dreams…and follow your star…you’ll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy.”
- Terry Pratchett -
Aspirations seem to be both the strength and the bane of many of us. We look forward at the potential we see inside ourselves, and see the possibilities we fully have the capability to achieve. We can picture a future with a richer, happier, better us, an us that is free from financial worry, free of relationship troubles, and loaded down with naked celebrities and expensive video cards. Okay, that last one might just be me.
The truth is, however, that while these aspirations are far from impossible, most of us will never realize them. Think back to what you were anticipating your life to be like a year ago, and I’m certain that the daily stressors of your life were not on your “To-Do” list. While some of this failure can be laid at the feet of that obnoxious asshole called Fate, the majority of the blame lies squarely on our shoulders.
Weight loss is like that. When we look forward to the ideal that our life will be one day, very few people think, “I’m going to be rich, famous, beloved, and fatter than a beached whale retaining water!” Instead, we picture ourselves rich, famous, beloved, and with washboard abs that could deflect an errant artillery shell.
We come up with brilliant plans as to how we can accomplish this feat. Late night infomercials and bottles of Hydroxycut seem to be the first step down the road to the body we want, and we truly believe that our good intentions will morph into biceps and wolf whistles.
But, we all know what road is paved with the very best of intentions, and while these good intentions might not be leading you down to a toastier climate than you might be used to, they sure as hell aren’t leading you to a fit, healthy life. There will always be reasons why you didn’t succeed at weight loss the last time. Those reasons are worthless, as is sitting around and moping about it.
The attempts I’ve made prior to my current one to abandon the excess baggage that jiggled and wobbled its way alongside me are many and storied. Calorie counting, carb counting, step counting, but all led back to doughnut counting. But none of that matters. No one who comes up to me saying, “What in the hell happened to you?!” follows that sentence up with, “But which weight loss attempt is this? Number 18? Oh, dear. That puts you at a record of 1-18.” If they do, you have my official permission to punch them right in their stupid face. Go ahead. We’ll wait.
The inestimable Mr. Pratchett is absolutely correct. You can believe in yourself, and really, truly know that this time will be different, that the Shake Weight will solve all your obesity problems. The only thing that confidence will get you is some tremendously embarrassing YouTube videos with you as the headliner. Until you get up off your ass and do the work, you’re not getting anywhere. Your failures are yours and yours alone. But things aren’t quite that grim.
Just as your failures are yours, your successes belong to no one else. There’s a sense of gleeful anticipation when you see someone who has not laid eyes upon you since you dropped the pounds. There’s no one else who can take credit for what you’ve done. There are plenty who will have cheered you on, but you did the work, you made the sacrifices, and now you’re a sexy piece of ass that can’t walk down the street without the bass line from “Staying Alive” backing you up and throngs of adoring fans dropping their jaws to the drool-covered pavement.
