Abstention

If you have lived more than 15 minutes in this world you have undoubtedly learned this life lesson: the reward for giving up what you desire is far in the future, but the punishment is immediate. I was musing on this the other day at the gym. It was one of those days when the body was not willing and the mind was feeling pretty weak as well. In truth, it is never the body that gives out first but the will.

Now I do not go to the gym five days a week in the hope I will emerge looking like Conan The Barbarian; those days are long past me. I go in the hope that by punishing my body for a few hours I will be able to maintain my health and live longer; perfectly reasonable objectives according to medical science. But as anyone who exercises knows the gains, if any, occur over time and are measured in small increments. And the reward for pushing oneself to do those last few repetitions to the point of failure is adding more weight the next time.

The same principle applies to eating. I don't consciously diet, though I am fairly careful about what I eat and how much. That too is a byproduct of going to the gym--I pay for my excesses in my workout so I am not awfully tempted to over indulge. But here again, the rewards of abstaining from that juicy burger or pepperoni laden slice of pizza are not felt at the moment but in the future. How many times have I thought while munching on a piece of fruit, or crunching some celery that I would rather be digging into a nice big bowl of Cherry Garcia.

As any cigarette smoker, drinker, or anyone with any ingrained habit knows, there is no gratification in abstention. Take the phone away from your friend or loved one who spends hours a day gazing into its pitiless screen, and ask them to be in the moment. Ouch. You'll suffer the consequences in the here and now. We humans are just not wired to give up what we want against the promise of a future benefit. To be human is to discover that this applies to almost everything.

Want to save money for retirement, a big purchase, or as a hedge against an uncertain future? It's easy, don't spend. If only not spending felt better--if the virtue felt as good as the vice. To be human is to live with this conundrum all our days. I'm not saying its impossible, many of us abstain from something or even several somethings we might otherwise indulge in on a regular basis, but lets not kid ourselves, it does require our higher mental faculties, our will power and force of habit to maintain our abstemious behavior. It does require that we use our intellect and our desire for a greater good down the road.

We live in a world that has force fed us instant gratification. Every advertisement, and a great many human experiences tantalize us with the seductive message that we can in fact have our cake, eat it now and pay no price later. There is a pill or a shot, or a procedure we can put ourselves through that will do what we could not; shed the pounds, arrest the disease, or buy us some time. We have not learned the trick--the magical solution to abstention. We have not learned to reward ourselves in the now.

What do I mean? Simply this, when we substitute the apple for the ice cream we need to appreciate it rather than see it as a poor substitute for what we wanted in its stead. When the muscles ache because we have asked a lot of them, we need to reward ourselves feeling those endorphins coursing through our bloodstream, the energy and sense of accomplishment that will carry us through the day. When we opt to avoid that next cigarette, we need to revel in our newly reclaimed sense of taste. We can tune out the false message that tells us we can have it all, any way we want it. Instead, we can see things as they are and appreciate them for what they are.

So, the next time you feel tempted to give up, give in, throw in the towel and do what you know isn't good for you, flip the mental message and find what is good for you, in the here and now. And for Pete's sake, turn off that phone and spend some time with the people you love.