This week, Akrasia.
As in, what might be holding us back from actually doing all this dope health shit.
It does give me a boost to hear from you and learn I’ve taught you something new that might impact your health positively.
And while I will try to bring you the juicy, new-to-you insights, no matter how many I drop, there is something I know about human psychology that can hinder anyone’s progress on the quest to 100.
It’s a concept we do not have one neat and tidy word for.
But the Greeks do.
It’s called akrasia.
The idea of knowing and not executing on the knowledge.
Either from forgetting or a weakness of will.
This idea of ‘weakness of will’ has always bothered me. It encourages self-punishment rather than self-compassion. But if we don’t take a hard look to peel below the surface of our minds, we might miss the small things that keep us from doing what we think we want to do.
In my mind, akrasia appears most often when up against social norms.
For example, it’s the norm to go through the x-ray machine at security.
But with more toxins in the environment than ever before in the history of human evolution? I have decided it’s not worth it.
Because while each exposure may not be that much, it is the accretion of many many factors today that ultimately leads to health or disease.
So this is a factoid I carry in my head: avoid the radiation from an x-ray machine.
And with travel coming back into my life for work, on the first trip of the year, I forgot.
On the second, I could feel the friction. There are some threads of people pleasing. Knowing that I needed to swim up-stream.
All we have to say is “I’d like an opt-out, please” and we can all experience less radiation and more unwanted human contact. I’ve now gone on two trips without forgetting or succumbing to the norm. Henceforth, it’s all creepy TSA pat downs.
So what do you know but not do that you can change this week?
Get to bed by a certain time?
Get your floss on?
Not take that receipt from the cashier to avoid PFAs?
Please share your pick in the comments below!