I know that I have a brain. The proof is in the algebra homework I do with my son and the work I manage to accomplish at my desk between the magic hours of 9 and 5. I’ve managed to set-up and manage a retirement account and I get dressed every morning without any help. But there are times when I question if I have a brain, or at least I question whether or not it has a kill switch that’s not operated by me.
For example, I know exactly what I should be eating everyday. My food knowledge is vast and kind of freaky. I know the calories in most foods and the glycemic index of many others. I know a serving of meat is a deck of cards and cheese is a pair of dice. I know that grass fed is better than corn fed, that bread is to be avoided at all costs and I know that the weight watcher’s point value on anything containing ice cream is so high that you might as well fast once you’ve licked an ice cream cone. But this doesn’t mean that I can keep my hands off a custard-filled maple bar. I know that it has a gazillon empty calories and my brain does not care. The switch has been flipped and it just wants that donut—right now. My brain sends panic attacks when I so much as think the word diet.
It’s this bypass switch that gets me in trouble. Not only does it fail to stop me from ordering movie popcorn in the mega-tub covered in butter flavored oil, but it tells me that watching the lifetime movie network into the wee hours of a Wednesday night is fun. News flash, it’s not that fun on Thursday morning at six.
Why can’t my right brain just agree with my logical left brain that it’s important to take care of me—after all, I’m the only me my brain gets? But it doesn’t work that way. It makes me walk into rooms and then refuses to remind me what I walked into that room to do. It tells me my children are beautiful cherubs and then it screams at them when I find dishes and socks planted like an Easter egg hunt around the house. It makes sex a passing thought as it lulls me to sleep before the sun has even gone down.
What I want is to find the mechanic that can give me control of my bypass switch but I looked it up online and it’s not promising. Apparently self-control is like my flabby under-worked ab muscles—it only works for a frustratingly short time and then it wants to go back, sit on the couch and watch The Big Bang Theory even though you swore you’d stop watching mindless television. So, if I was counting on self-control to crack the whip on my brain, I’m out of luck. Any suggestions?
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