Determined To Succeed

Day ninety-three.

I can’t begin to tell you all the times Bill Ivory Larson wakes up on a given morning NOT feeling like doing something that particular day. Going to the store. Cleaning the house. Making a phone call to a creditor or business. Putting my nice warm and toasty feet on the cold, hard floor. It doesn’t matter. From time to time all of us face that point where we have to do something that we don’t want to do but have to do anyway.

Take for example working out, which for me has been more mental than anything lately. It’s not that I hate going to the gym. In fact, I love going and love sweating my ass off when I’m there. Sometimes, though, it’s purely because I HAVE TO GO that makes me not WANT to go. Know what I mean? It’s that I wish I didn’t HAVE to do it all the time. I wish I was one of those people who could (seemingly) eat whatever they want and not gain an ounce AND look like they just stepped out of a fashion magazine ad. But noooooooooo! I HAVE to go workout if I am going to merely keep my weight down. Bah! Bah, I say! The same goes for eating more nutritious foods, eating right and exercising portion control.

I know I should have a better mental attitude sometimes about weight loss. I absolutely do but I am human. But the thing that makes me know this is a story my sensei, Doug Shaffer, told me last week.

Doug told me the story of a kid he knew (you know a story will never end well when the words “kid” and “knew” crop up. Very foreboding, indeed) who was onloy twenty-one years old and died from an asthma attack. Poor guy. Went to a party, got plastered, went back to his place and zonked out. Somehow, he started having an attack and couldn’t get to his medicine (or was passed out while it was happening) and he died. he was found the next day by his girlfriend.

Just twenty-one, and with so much life ahead of him.

The reason I tell you that story today (and tell myself that story) is that we cannot sit on our butts and wait to feel like we WANT to do something. If there is something we have to do we should just go do it, for the love of God, and get it out of the way. I know I have never in my life been good at doing that because I was afraid of hurting someone’s feelings (that they wouldn’t like me anymore), or that there would be repercussions (like at my former job where you would just not want to open your mouth out of dread and a constant fear of being fired for daring to speak out). If we wait, if I wait, to do do something for when I WANT to do it I might be waiting a long time. Worse, I will be wasting time in the process, and I have wasted too much time on addictions to waste anymore of it on silly things that are only in my head.

Next month, I am going to celebrate being 40 years old and in the coming weeks I will tell you how I plan to celebrate my birthday all year long. But in the meantime I’m just going to think about how I lived almost 19 years longer than a kid who died simply because he couldn’t take a breath. I know exactly how that feels. I, too, had asthma so bad I couldn’t breathe at times. Hell, it even made me pass out once. I’ve lived 19 years longer and that means I SHOULD do something with that and because of that. That is purpose. That is drive. That is will.

I will because I must make the most of each and every day. No. Matter. What.

My friends, if there is something you don’t want to do today but know that you have to keep two things in mind. One, that you are not alone. There are so many others facing similar feelings about their own situations. Two, once you get it over with you will feel so much better and can move on to the things you WANT to do (and yes, that does include eating what you should and exercising to keep weight in check). That is what I will do today. Do the things I need to do to make the time to do what I want to do.

In honor of that kid who didn’t make it to see 22.

In honor of my mom, JoAnn Larson, so I do not disappoint her.

Most of all, for myself so I can be the man I’ve always wanted to be and now strive for every day. One of which my mom can be proud and I can say did the hard things even if he didn’t want to so that he, and those closest to him, could be happy in the long run.

Sorry this was so late today but I was in a quandry.

I’m going to sound like an old fogie (is that even how it’s spelled?) but I don’t know how to relate to kids these days. Well, I do and I don’t. Last week you heard me talking about a website and technology conference I attended in New York and, while there, I got a wonderful idea to try to help kids who might have weight loss issues through information and resources on my website.

However, the more I delved into the “what” of it all (like what kind of content to have, etc.) I realized I don’t exactly know how to reach kids these days. When I was a fat kid it was the late 70s/early 80s. There were no such things as the following:

• Cell Phones (which kids seem to have younger and younger these days so no texting, mobile internet, etc.)
• iPods (hell, I thought I was king of the world with my first Sony Walkman personal radio)
• Personal Computers (I had a small electronic typewriter that got me through school – a typewriter!)
• Internet (and with it the extension of ways to get and absorb news and information)
• E-Mail (back then we actually wrote letters to each other and sent them in the mail, or snail mail as it’s called today, or passed notes)
• Cable TV (there wasn’t even a fourth Fox network back then. Just independent TV stations and the big three – CBS, NBC and ABC)
• Facebook and Twitter (progress back then was called a “party line,” expensive phone calls people could make to join 20 others to chat on the phone hosted by someone whose only job it was to keep you talking to get you to pay more per minute)

Amazing, isn’t it? Over the last 25-30 years technology has really improved. However, it has made the job of reaching people, especially kids, such a hard thing to do. The only way I can describe it is as practicing “lucky science.” Science because you have to do it so surgically since you can’t reach really large numbers of people using very few media anymore, and lucky because you never know what will resonate with people and take off like wild fire (as Twitter has the power to put information all over the world in a matter of minutes).

So how do I reach kids these days and let them know my simple story? That I was once a chubby kid, who was made fun of in school, and who had the same social problems they do these days because I was obese? How do I let them know I know how they feel when you can’t find age-appropriate clothes that fit, or have to find clothes less attractive or popular because they just aren’t in your size? How do I let kids know it’s normal to feel sad and depressed because you’re made fun of and are different, but also let them know it’s OK to talk about it and try to do something about it?

Jeez! I do sound like an old fogie FER SURE! LIKE TOTALLY! I sound like I’m waving my cane at some hot-rodders burning rubber down the street yelling at them as I wave my cane calling them “young whippersnappers.” But I’m not old (at least not yet) and I do very much remember what it’s like to be the fat kid. Plain and simple – it hurts. It hurts and at a time that is really solidifying who you’re going to become as an adult there are these pressures from family (in some cases), society-at-large, media (particularly fashion magazines geared towards teens) and friends to be this perfect being. And sometimes we are just not and we do not need anyone pointing out our flaws!

I guess it would be simple enough to tell kids this. In fact, it might make it easier for them to believe me when I tell them my personal fat kid story. I just know that America does have a childhood obesity epidemic on its hands, driven by lack of food education, support and economics. Well, I am going to do my best to help in any way I can. Not because I am saying all kids need to be thin or anything. But because it is all about health. Things like asthma and breathing problems (which I’ve had). High blood pressure (which I’ve had). And you could go on with juvenile diabetes, joint pain, etc. That is why I want to reach out. Because if I could go back in time and talk to me I would tell me it’s OK and to not eat so much McDonalds or ribs or fried foods. I’d also tell me the dangers of eating that much and how much I weighed at my heaviest and what problems it caused me. I’d tell me I understand what it’s like not having money to buy better foods and not have the proper resources to prepare them. I’d offer to help.

This is a crazy, mixed up and fast-paced world in which we live these days. But no matter what, kids need our help. And no matter how we reach them and tackle this problem of childhood obesity, we are helping them to become the same old fogies we are today. And I’d rather be an old fogie waving my cane around at young hot-rodders than dead in my 40s from a heart attack brought on by obesity.