Insidious Adaptation

"So then you are choosing to suffer?" "No, I am not choosing to suffer, but I do suffer." "Well, that is a choice is it not? Suffering is about how we interpret, through choice, our environment and the circumstances instances we experience." "I guess" "So then, the suffering you experience is based on choice." "Maybe..." Double-click for suffering.  On an unexpectedly warm autumn day, the air conditioning inside my office is particularly frigid, thus the interaction between extreme heat and extreme cool condenses on any surface flexible with the temperature, my client looks at me with a blank stare. "So, how's your week been?" "Good." He does this. He comes to see me, yet, refuses to willingly give up information. Sometimes I feel like some kind of private investigator, having to snoop around the obvious to get client to subconsciously tell me something to grab on to. "Yea, t...

The title, I feel like I came up with by myself, but there has to have been an idea like this before? Please tell me that someone somewhere has taken a step back, away from the crowds of bootcampers, the various cross-fit exercises, the supplements, the diet, all of it, and ask, why? Not just in why am I doing this, but, more specifically, why this? Why this workout, why this supplement, why this food? All necessary for an efficient, goal-driven lifestyle. I figure if you are going to take the time to invest in your overall wellness, you must have taken consideration in what kind of wellness? When we went to school, or started a career, did we just say I need a job, and stop there? We may have at first, like eating carrots instead of a Butterfinger or running instead of sitting, but time advances, and so should you. It's OK to ask questions when it comes to where you choose to spend your time. It is OK to ask why you should be eating certain foods, or less of others. It is OK...

When I first graduated with my bachelor's degree after seven years of in and out of school, many degree switches, and goal-interfering behaviors, I finally got my first job in my field. Little did I know that first job was going to be working at a group home with adolescent boys whom had a criminal rap sheet larger than grown men I would later work with. The funniest part of the job was that the first time I went in for the interview I had to take a basic math exam, which I failed. My pride interfered with my ability to conduct basic, elementary-level mathematics and budget a grocery ledger. "I'm sorry Mr. Meier, you failed the math test, you are not eligible for hire at this time." The words shook through my body, crumbled my foundation, made me reflect on every other inadequacy that was now exposed. Pain searing through my temples, a throbbing that made me want to lash out at him, the HR guy (whom later became a Facebook friend). I wanted to hurt someone, I wa...

Bzzzzz there is a fly in this room right now. I cannot stand the filth I feel at times when there is a fly in the room. As though he is taunting me with his unnecessary buzz. What is that sound that comes from a housefly anyways? Is it their wings? Do they purposely make that sound to make them even more detestable? They are gross because they start out as maggots, they tend to poop whenever they land, they tend to be around gross things, and like my dog, tend to track in the house what they were recently in. How can I possibly find peace with this? How in the world am I able to dig deep enough to, "just ignore" the fly and continue on with as much contentment as I had before I head the fly's buzzing past my head? I cannot recall how content I was before this. I now realize what I had because it is gone. A tiny fly, his unnecessary noise, and now an interpretation of filth, how would anyone ever, feel content again? Well, I guess, someone could have it worse than the...

Slavery as we now know it now is passive in nature. It exists, of course it exists, because, well, one man pressing power on another is exactly what we are good at. Animals have power over other animals as Bees give us an example of what their bidding to the Queen, and ultimately to the hive, costs the workers. Predatory animals who hunt in packs, have a leader and natural submission to this leader exists, again, bidding to them as their needs met first, for the sake of the pack of course. Humans though, we are a different breed, our slavery, our control over another man is more malicious, more intentful to reduce a human being down to a tool, a piece of equipment unworthy of human rights. This is the premise set, one that through a few generation shifts is a foundation for underlying resentment and disgust on both ends. One group is grown from oppression and the other group is used to being superior, and as timelines grow closer toward each other, the once-superior group fe...

The coolest guy I ever knew was a senior in high school when I was.a freshman. He was the quarterback for the football team, good looking, also had one of the hottest girls in high school as his girlfriend, at the time seemed larger than life, and he was a pretty nice guy as well. Deservingly so, I was, "bullied" in my first year in high school, to the defense of the perpetrators, I had a mouth and was of a larger build, so I may have deserved it. This guy did not give me any of this sort of attention, he had other things to do, he was just smooth and anytime I talked with him, seemed respectful, but yet, still cool. This guy went on to play football at a small, liberal arts college and I had ran into him throughout life since, he has seemed to maintain that, "coolness," I so looked up to as an inadequate youth, now as an inadequate adult. What is it about a, "cool" person that makes them so? Like, even as I was describing him, reflecting back on act...

The eyes tell the truth our conscious unable to cover. The insides, the souls these bodies contain, the abstract concepts defined in undefinable terms. The eyes however, they offer a glimpse, simply described as beautiful, even with the most broken. We are all made of good which lingers inside us all, no matter how altered, how saturated in  manipulation  experience forced it into. The love inside, the goodness we originated from, lingers in the eyes for there is no makeup, no clothing options, no actions, that can override what we all know exists.   Some of us define ourselves by actions, I am a writer, a former of words, a counselor by profession, yet, who I truly am is behind these eyes. What I do isn’t anything of significance and only displays what I want you to see, for my eyes will show you I am too scared to be honest. The actions are filtered, where the eyes are unable to be, even through presentation and admission of guilt, the eyes tell the real and only t...

It’s 11AM, the day after moving. The day after I broke routine, ate various protein bars, drank way too much caffeine, consumed no vegetables, no fish, and I fear, not enough water. After all, it was a long day from 3:30AM, for I like to write, until 10PM, most of which was spent very active. At the end, to celebrate the end of moving festivities, pizza! That’s right, carb-rich, greasy, fat-laden, thyroid stimulating, za. A favorite fast food in this household, for it is fast and it is technically food, a perfect cap to an imperfect day. A way to resign the mind into a binge of sorts and into a relaxation as I convince myself, “I deserve this.” The pizza, the energy drinks, the lack of this or that, or the too much of something led to a 16-hour fast to help the system get a break from the strain of poor choices. This was hour 15. I was starving. I came around the corner of the kitchen, catching a glance of the oven timer. It was behind a few minutes, not a huge deal, however whe...