naysay while I play

"To escape criticism
do nothing,
say nothing,
be nothing."
- Elbert Hubbard

I was fretting the other day about a few negative comments on my video (click here) that was shot a few days after my gastric bypass surgery in 2006.
Folks have been jabbing at me, making snap judgments, being unkind.

I took it personally.
I let them get to me.
I sniped back at a couple of them.
Sniping didn't make me feel any better.

Between the negative jabs and the blog troll (click here)
I was feeling a little raw.
My confidence was punch drunk.
I wavered in my resolve.

Like a magnet I drew more criticism to me.

My mother, God bless her in her ability to sense when my self esteem is at its most fragile, repeated my fathers' recent frustration with my latest "diet".

After paying for one, just one, of my farm orders he griped to my mother:
Is all this really necessary?

She said she responded to him by saying she didn't know.

Why not?
I asked her.
It IS necessary.
Of course this is necessary I yelled, more so to hear myself say it than to convince her.

She told me to go ahead and do what I thought was good for me but that there's no guarantee.

No guarantee of what? I asked.

That eating all this Amish food would make me healthy.
She said that if it were really a guarantee of good health then everyone would be doing it and nutritionists and dietitians would be recommending it to everyone.

I started to argue with her.
I demanded that she believe in what I was doing.
It is a guaranteed way to be healthy.
People won't do it because it's difficult and inconvenient and they'd rather shop at the supermarket...
and every other argument I could think of.

She held firm.
Nawwww no, she barked.
She dismissed me.
She laughed at me for thinking I was doing something "guaranteed" for my health.
I yelped and fought.
The most she would concede was that if I believed it was helping me than I should continue doing it.

I tried arguing that nothing is guaranteed but she still nawww no-ed me.
I felt betrayed.
I was pissed.

Then I remembered all the OTHER things I was so sure about in my life.
Things that cost her thousands of dollars to support me in.
Things like moving out of the house with a roommate who deep-down hated me.
Things like my first two weight loss surgeries.

Every diet I've ever been on,
every crazy dietary change I've adopted
every program that I was sure was the answer
she's been there with her wallet out to support me.

Now I'm following nourishing traditions and
I'm like the boy who cried wolf.
Now that the wolf (nourishing traditional food) is really here
she's done supporting me.
Maybe what I'm doing is too weird.
Maybe she's not seeing "results" fast enough (you know, obvious drastic weight loss).

Maybe it's a sign from God that I'm actually doing the right thing.

It's different now.
This time it's mine.
The wolf is here and it's me.

Then as swiftly as she kicks my wispy self esteem she builds me up again by telling me how proud she is that I'm toughing it out at two colleges this summer
in
a
wheelchair.

I thanked her for noticing.
The support didn't get me all riled up the way the criticism did.
I'm just a big fleshy stimulus response machine, ain't I?

Maybe the lesson is to have faith in myself.
Maybe I'm supposed to be resolute
even when I might be wrong.

I don't NEED everyone I know to sit in the cheering section.
I've got to play like I'm at an away game.
Focus.
Do my best
and not let a few stray boos get me off my game.

It's not the boos or hoorays that play the game, it's the players.

I'm a player.

Win or lose
good plays or bad
I'm in it.

I'm playing.

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
When Apple launched the iPod in 2001, it was ridiculed, according to the Economist magazine.
Innovative companies often ignore what the market is telling them.
Here's Katie Churchill, a home-business builder, telling us to believe in our vision no matter what the naysayers say!
click here or click below