The cure for the common…[False Hope Syndrome]

Day 11….

Remember the hopeful, energetic, confident optimist we were on Day 1?  Yeah, he’s not around anymore.  Instead, I find more of an objective realist in his place.  It’s at this point in “The 100” where I usually start to question…is this sustainable?  Was I too grandiose in my own ideal?  In what I thought I was capable of?  Maybe I need to rethink some of my aspirations? Maybe, just maybe…I’m not meant to be ambidextrous?  Ten days of writing with my left hand and it still looks like chicken scratch!?! 

Side point, Ben Franklin, Nikola Tesla, Einstein, Da Vinci! Lebron James!!   All ambidextrous.  Now I’m not saying you have to be ambidextrous to achieve this level of success.  But I’m not not saying it as well!  In addition, what if you find yourself in a sword dual and your right arm gets pinned or injured?  How convenient it would be just to throw the sword to your left hand and continue to victory!  That’s not happening without a little practice people!  But I digress.

Inigo Montoya (Ambidextrous!!) The Princess Bride

Ten days is a long time, it’s easy to look at what you’ve been doing so far and feel like the juice ain’t worth the squeeze.   This is where False Hope Syndrome can settle in, a term coined by the International Journal of Obesity.  They have a whole paper on it, click the link if you’re interested in reading up on it. It essentially speaks to what people’s expectation of themselves are when engaging in self change versus the reality.  The sad truth is things don’t always change as fast as we’d like them and that can get frustrating.  Worse, it can cause us to give up.  I mean, what’s the point if I don’t see progress, right? 

But why do we engage in self-improvement? Is it only to see progress or results? If so, is that enough to sustain us? If not, what can? Most people like to feel in control of their life, even in low-control circumstances. The paper I cited above points to a study done with cancer patients:

“In the real world, cancer patients who have greater perceptions of control over their disease are less depressed, even factoring in such related components as physical functioning and marital satisfaction.   Even so a minor behavioral effort at controlling one’s problems such as making a telephone call to schedule an appointment with a psychotherapist produces measurable improvement in distressed individuals.”

We feel good, even when we’re not in complete control of our circumstances, if we just make small choices that can affect us positively.  However, this is where being realistic is so important.  One of the first drafts of my 100 had “No processed foods, no bread, no dairy, no sugar or enjoyment of food.” Ok, so it didn’t have the “enjoyment of food” part, but you get the idea.  It just wasn’t sustainable.  Inevitably, nine or ten days in I’d get elbow deep into a bag of Doritos and wake up on the couch three hours later with red crumbs on my chest and a half-eaten sleeve of Oreos next to me. 

That said, not all good habits take ten days to start seeing results.  A big boost can come just from being in tune with how we feel from engaging in them.  It’s funny to look back and realize, but it took me a very…very long time – like decades – to realize what I put in my mouth affects how I feel.   Duh!   Seems obvious now.  Over time, that desire to feel good after I ate eventually became stronger than the lure of fudge brownies.  Crazy I know, but it does happen!

A mans reach should exceed his grasp.

Robert Browning

I know I probably won’t be ambidextrous any time soon, if ever.  But a lot of the enjoyment of my 100 comes just from trying.  A person should attempt even those things that may turn out to be impossible, because who knows?  They may not be.  What’s the alternative anyways.  Not try?  That doesn’t sound very fun. 

Eventually, I did have to pare down my dietary expectations to just include “No bread (not good for my waistline) and no added sugar – chocolate bars, gummy worms, donuts (insert sad face here) and the like. I had success with that. This time round, I’ve added in no processed foods. So far so good. Growth is like that, it’s a slow, meandering giant. A refining process that takes time.

What one man can do, so can another.

Robert A Glover

While the above statement probably isn’t accurate – I’m not going to be slam dunking any time soon – I love the idea of it.  My belief in this simple statement is what gets me excited to try!!  So, if I can’t dunk like Lebron, why not write like Lebron…90 days to go…watch out James!  I’m coming.

Yours truly,