April 29, 2009

• A Valuable Lesson in Self Control

  I am the King of the Castle.

  I am the Music Pastor at Midway Baptist Church.

  I am self-employed.

  Not too often do people tell me what to do.  I make a lot of my own decisions, and when I work with a team, I’m usually the leader.
  This is good and bad.

  It’s good because it suits me just fine. I enjoy being my own boss, and when I’m working for someone else, I generally have enough structure to experience great freedom within that environment.

  However, this is also bad because it means, for the most part, I get whatever I want…when I want it.
  Now I can’t say this is true 100% of the time, but it is true to a reasonable extent. And you know what?

  IT’S NOT HEALTHY.

  No one–and I MEAN NO ONE–should live without a balance of power in their lives. The person that gets their way all the time usually ends up a spoiled brat–selfish, ungrateful, self-centered, prideful, and shallow…and most of all–UNHEALTHY.

  Two weeks ago I decided that I really needed to give up desserts. I really felt like I needed to set a boundary for myself, so that I’d have a reason to have some self-discipline and not just gorge myself on whatever food I wanted, whenever I wanted, to whatever unhealthy result.
  Ugh.
  Living on decisions made at the spur of the moment, or brought on by the power of suggestion is BAD.  Instead of following a pre-determined plan of healthy eating, I would eat whatever I was craving at the moment.  Most of the time it would be whatever was easiest to eat, what was most handy, or what was right before me. So I ate chips, snacky-things, cookies, cakes, ice-cream, or whatever I could lay my hands on.
  Double Ugh!
  But for the last 15 days I’ve been much more careful about what I’ve consumed, eating more fruits, veggies, salads, proteins, whole grains, and NO DESSERTS.

  That’s right.

  No candy, cookies, ice cream, etc…

  AT ALL.

  And for me, it has been a BIG sacrifice.

  But it’s also been SOOOOOOOOOOoooooooo good for me. For it has taught me the value of discipline. I’ve lost a few pounds over the last couple of weeks, and I have a feeling if I keep up this no-dessert thing, it will be a few more. But that’s not all–I’ve learned about balance, about self-control, about boundaries, and about the value of saying NO because you decided a long time ago that NO was the answer it would always be…and it isn’t left up to the spur of the moment decision.

  This has been really healthy for me.

  I highly recommend you try it sometime…

  • 2:59 am
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