Do It If You Know What’s Good For You

Remember how a few weeks ago I did that blood test and was all self-congratulatory about my bonza results?

Well, one of the recommendations my doc made was to add some turmeric to my diet. Just a little to my daily protein shake at lunch.

I dutifully acquired some turmeric, which is so vivid in its little glass jar that it really adds a pop to the colour palate of my kitchen.

Unfortunately, I hate turmeric, and now my lunch is ruined.

Lunch is already the weakest of the meals, by far, and I really don’t need another reason to avoid it.

So I am faced with a dilemma: do I do the thing I’m sure is good for me, even though I hate it, or do I NOT do that thing, and face the potential consequences while enjoying my tiny rebellion?

Here’s what I’ve discovered in the past few years: sometimes a little rebellion goes a long way.

Sometimes just keeping one tiny part of your life where you do something (or don’t do something) exclusively because that’s what you want is surprisingly powerful.

It doesn’t sound like a particularly revolutionary idea. But I think it is.

We spend so much time doing what’s good for us, doing what we’re told, doing the dutiful thing — that we forget how it feels just to do something because we want to.

How it would feel to go outside and sit in the sunshine, because you feel like it, instead of getting straight to work every morning?

To ignore the phone, when you don’t feel like answering?

To say no to a project, because you’d rather rest?

To write or cook or draw something, because you can, not because you have to?

, life is made of these small rebellions.

Don’t drift along ignoring them.

To do only what you know is good for you, what you feel you must do, is to miss the point.

Do the things that bring you alive, that carry a real risk in them, and that leave you breathless and electrified, too.