Good god, that’s a pretentious title. It works for this post, but “The Triumph Of Desperation” sounds like a short story written by a college freshman who smokes clove cigarettes and spends most of his time mispronouncing Nietzsche or using Ayn Rand books to justify being a total jackass.
As some of you may know, I’m a massive fan of board games. I grew up playing chess (if you’re shocked at this, we clearly have never met), and one of my earliest writing efforts was writing board game reviews for a now-defunct website. It combines my love of puzzles with a social aspect. One of my favorites is a game known as Agricola, which is truly beautiful, elegant, and polished . It’s also a cast-iron son of a bitch that will make you cry.
It’s not as complicated as it looks. It’s so very much worse.
Agricola is a game not characterized by a sweeping, triumphant win that leaves everyone cheering. Agricola is a game where you are constantly, unforgivably on the verge of crushing losses. Victory here doesn’t mean you conquer the board or win prizes. Victory here means that your family managed to make it through another year while being only horribly undernourished, rather than starving to death. Winning this game is exhausting. It’s also tremendously satisfying.
If you’re like most people, this sounds about as appealing as a battery-acid colonic. So why in the world do I love it so? I love Agricola because I can relate to it. Every damn day.
Choosing to live a healthy lifestyle isn’t a dramatic victory. There’s no point where you have achieved perfection, won the game, and trumpets sound while women swoon over you. (It was a sad, sad day in the Fat Nerd house when I had to admit that). Choosing to eat healthy is a series of daily victories, each one hard won. You are bombarded with temptations, and take reason and contort it like a Cirque du Soleil performer stuffed into a duffel bag in order to justify why eating that doughnut this morning isn’t that big a deal. It’s hard.
When I reach the end of the day, and I’ve managed to navigate the obstacles that have done their damnedest to send me back down the path of corpulence (look it up, or buy word of the day toilet paper.), it’s a genuine accomplishment. No one is going to tell you that you’ve done a good job. No one will be impressed that you made it from sun up to sundown without doing a backflip mouth-first into a vat of mashed potatoes. No one’s going to come up to you at work and say, “Holy shit, dude, you haven’t hit the vending machine all day!” while high-fiving you so hard it makes the windows crack. (For the record, that last one should totally happen.)
No, the victory for staying healthy for 24 hours is a small one in the grand scheme of things. But it’s no less important for all of that. The big victories are made from the exhausting little ones that no one notices but you. Every person that announces that they’ve lost fifty pounds did it through day after day of making the right choices. No one celebrates those little victories, but in their own way, they’re more important than the big ones.
If you know someone that’s trying to eat healthy, hit the gym every now and then, quit smoking, or kick that nasty monkey-tail habit once and for all (don’t ask), you have the opportunity to recognize those little victories. No one comes up to high-five you for choosing water over Coke. But maybe they should.
“Hey, I noticed you did a salad for lunch even though they ordered pizza. That’s really impressive.”
“You went for a run even though it’s colder than a polar bear’s nipple out there? Holy frozen eyeballs, that’s awesome.”
“Oh my god, you met your friends at a bar and didn’t eat the nachos? Here’s my phone number. Your move, Brunette Brad Pitt.”
The other day, I stomped back to my cubicle irritated because the company had ordered fresh Krispy Kremes. They smelled amazing. One of my coworkers stopped by, and asked if I’d grabbed one. When I told him that I was trying to watch what I ate, he shook his head, and said, “Badass, man. That’s awesome.” It was a little thing, but it made all the difference in the world. So for all those out there who haven’t slipped today? This one’s for you.
