Hello, 2017. Let me introduce myself.

Hi, 2017. You don't know me, but you're about to.

So it's day 1 of a brand new year.

Take a deep sniff of that synthetic new car smell, full of hopeful and delusional possibilities, wafting through the hole of our ozone layer.  Everyone on social media seems to have taken a deep wift, and gotten high. I'm seeing lots of posts about "New Year, New Life" or "I'm going to savor each moment" and my favorite, "This year is going to be MY year."

That's not my cynical side talking. I'm not cynical. I'm no fun sucker. If someone wants to hope for a better them, I'm all for it.

I just pay attention. And I think a lot. So I end up seeing our problems from a bird's eye view.

Everyone, including myself, plans to: lose weight, eat healthy, and save money. I guess another way to look at that is that everyone is carrying a tire around their waist,  forgot what real fruit and vegetables taste like, and in soul-crippling debt.

Sorry Mother Oprah, but we are so not living our best life.

I have some theories on why.

WHY WE'RE FAT:

We're sedentary. And I mean, sedentary like garden-slugs-move-more-than-we-do sedentary.

The average person probably works 40 hours in a sit down job,  spends at least 8 hours driving per week , and stressed out because we feel like there aren't enough hours to live our lives (And if you're a parent? God, I don't know how they do all that and raise kids without a village).

With such long hours, we're tired at the end of the day, so who could blame us for ordering take-out? All we can do is stuff our face and watch Netflix and go to sleep, probably after watching porn. Repeat four more days. Multiply for 52 weeks. That's our work year.

Then there's our diet.

WHY WE EAT THE WAY WE DO:

A lot of us eat out.  It's convenient, and fried things taste good.

You'd think making your own food at home would be better because most of us don't have a deep fryer.

But we're still sorta screwed either way.

Look we're all pretty aware what to eat at this point. We don't try to buy sugary crap, but it's impossible to buy things that don't have that in their ingredients. But that's because Corn lobbyists have most of Congress by the balls so of course you're going to find our food laced with corn syrup.

It's everywhere. Milk? Yup, there's sugar in there. Yogurt? Might as well drink a soda.  And of course, spaghetti sauce, which is basically Frapuccino's half sister. There's sugar in everything. We're all going to die because we're eating that sweet, sweet poison.

We're going to speed through the pathophysiology of this: Sugar causes weight gain. That fat around your gut makes you insulin resistant because that layer of fat is toxic to the body. Then over time your pancreas is like, "Fuck this shit. I'm tired" and retires. You get diabetes. Most people are noncompliant with that disease so they'd either get kidney failure or have a massive heart attack because those two organs have delicate small arteries. And then you just sorta treat your chronic conditions, either through dialysis or bypass, until your decaying body finally gives up and you die alone in a hospital bed.

Good God, I'm morbid. Hi, 2017. You're starting to realize who I am, aren't you?  I'm not a Debbie Downer, I swear, I'm not...but I might be distantly related to her.

I mean, I hope people change their diet, I really do. But I don't think people have an idea of just how steep a mountain they're trying to climb. Sugar is incredibly addictive. I'm not talking smoking-addictive, I'm talking cocaine-addictive.

Yeah, COCAINE. The kind of shit Hollywood people overdose on.

Giving up sugar is not easy. That first week is the worst part. Your body has gotten so used to the stuff that you're actually going to suffer through withdrawal symptoms: cravings, headaches, mood swings, maybe even the shakes. Most people break by week two and binge eat Snickers to catch up on their sugar deficit.

Who could blame them? You've ingested the stuff for years. Your body won't be like, "Oh, were not gonna be doing that anymore? That's cool. I won't be pissed and revolt against you."

And lastly, there's the debt part.

WHY WE'RE ALL BROKE:

Now that's two parts. Some of us have student loans and it's quadruple what we make in a year. So we're basically indentured servants for twenty years. We work jobs that we're overqualified for. And that's the few of us that found a job even close to our field.

Graduate high school + go to college + get married = GOOD LIFE.

This formula is antiquated and an educational bias we were all led to believe. That kind of thinking makes you think that if you don't have a college degree, you're going to struggle forever. (I'm not touching the get married part on this post, that's later)

But there are plenty of jobs out there that don't require a four year degree. "Dirty Jobs" has Mike Rowe doing all these jobs and a lot of them pay more than you'd think. He argues that people (Bernie Sander) should stop telling people that going to college is better than going to jail. That's making a huge assumption that non-college graduates all turn to a life of crime. You could make a good life working a trade: carpentry, electrician, plumber, welder, truck driver...there's 3 million of these jobs just waiting to be filled. It's honest work. You won't be stuck in a cubicle. You'll be helping people. Why not?

And the second reason we're all in debt?

We shop a lot. Not really because need the stuff, but we were taught to earn as much as we could and turn around and spend it foolishly. All we ever want is more. A lot more than we've had before. There's never enough for us to have. We want the latest and the greatest of everything. Consumerism programmed us. We don't even notice it. Hell, I notice it and I still have trouble NOT shopping.

For some reason, we see minimalism as a bad thing synonymous with being poor.

More stuff means more happiness right? That's why we work such long hours? To buy more stuff to finally reach that state where we have all the stuff we want and then we can finally say that we're happy? We want our kids to have everything we didn't so they can live a happy life.

Isn't that how it works? Isn't that what we were told? Possessions give your life worth?

I think we need to modify our resolutions.


Instead of losing weight, we should work less, so we have enough time in the day to walk around, watch the clouds, fly a kite, enjoy our families, enjoy the endorphins after a good run, laugh with our loved ones while we still have them around, take pleasure from simple things, maybe watch a sunrise and a sunset on the same day. I don't know, just live a life the way it's meant to be lived?

Instead of eating healthy, we might want to wake up to the foods we're being sold. Turn that box around and read that sugar content. Gasp out loud. Maybe consider starting your own vegetable garden? Or only shopping the perimeter of a grocery store and avoiding the stuff in the middle as much as possible. Go get your produce, your meats, and your dairy, walk straight to check out without looking at all that temptation and go home. Then eat less of what you normally eat and savor the food you do eat.

Instead of saving enough money, we could stop hemorrhaging it and stop shopping. We could try going through all the items in our houses and giving it away. Downsize your life. Get rid of 100 items and see how much freer you feel. It makes you appreciate the stuff you have left. You won't want to buy as much. You'll start to realize smaller is better, not the other way around. Start tomorrow, you might like it.


So yeah, 2017. That's me. That's how I think. I'm deeply suspicious and poignantly anxious about any future that claims to be problem free.

Nice to meet you.