I’m not doing it this time. I’m not going to be beaten by myself. It would be very easy, of course. In the past, oh so many times, I have set goals for myself that I have abandoned at the first sign of trouble. You might say that it is my pattern to establish new patterns and then go back to the old ones. In fact, I find myself setting the same goals over and over again, and I’m tired of it. I’m sick of these problems. How about I solve them and go get some new ones?
At least once a year my wife and I sit down to figure out where all of our money is going. Where are the leaks that we can plug? Why does our budget look good on paper and bad in reality? What happened to our money?! Well, in a shocking twist, it turns out that we spent it. And we mostly spent it on burritos and cheeseburgers. Not good. This might also explain the lack of progress in the weight goal department. So we need a plan. A meal plan. We need to eat at home every night, and limit the eating out to once a week or less. We need to sit down and make a shopping list and a dinner schedule. And so we do.
We do this, unfailingly, for about three weeks. Sometime in the middle of week three or four we screw up. We are both out all day and it is 6 PM and everyone is exhausted and starving and it is clear that neither of us is going to be cooking anything, so we buy food. And it feels like failure. And we give up. And suddenly we stop having our meetings, and we stop shopping so regularly, and six months later we are wondering where all of our money has gone and why none of our clothes fit again. So we need a plan. A meal plan. We need to eat at home every night, and limit the eating out to once a week or less. We need to sit down and make a shopping list and a dinner schedule. And so we do. This has been repeating itself for at least a decade.
I have given up drinking Coke a half a dozen times over the years. The last time I did it (well, down to one a day anyway) I lost over 15 pounds. But then I got thirsty. I fell off the wagon. I gave in to my addiction and it was over. The weight came back with the beverage and now I am knocking down so many sugary liquid calories a day that it is surprising that I am still alive. So I am cutting back again. I have limited myself, starting after Christmas, to just one at lunch and one at dinner. And last week I switched from 12 oz. cans to 8 oz. cans. It was going pretty well. And then, on Tuesday, for a variety of accidental reasons, I did not drink any Coke at all.
I was nervous, but excited. I realized at around 9:30 PM that I had not had any caffeinated soda all day, and I wondered aloud to my wife if I should have one “to be safe,” or if it was too late. Feeling optimistic, I decided to forgo the Coke and I went to bed, praying that there would be no adverse affects. You see, if it was just as easy as willpower, I would have given up soda long ago. Yesterday morning I woke up with a terrible migraine. The kind I get when I have not had any Coke the day before. I downed one at 7 AM and as soon as the kids were in school I had another one. I went to a meeting at church, and on my way home I stopped at McDonald’s and got another large Coke. By the end of the day I wasn’t just off the wagon; I was under it.
This has happened before, many times actually. This is the same story of every other time I have tried to give up Coke. With one difference. Today I am going to allow myself to fail, without allowing myself to give up. Today I am going to have two 8 oz. Cokes. one at lunch and one at dinner. In another week or two, I might switch to one 12 oz. can per day. Then an 8 oz. can. Then, maybe, I will try skipping a day and see what happens. And if it goes sideways, I will go on a bender and then resume my new pattern. Even if I never get off the stuff completely, progress is being made. And it’s not an all-or-nothing sort of situation. It’s my life. And if I give up every time I hit a wall, you know, like I usually do, then I’m never to going to make progress. And though I may never reach my goals, at least I’ll be moving in the right direction. I just have to make that good enough for me to live with.