Thinking Out Loud, Volume CCCLXVI

Here's a test to see if smoking is bad for you. Stand in front of a mirror and take a good look at yourself, and then go smoke a cigarette. Wait thirty minutes and then go back and take another good look in the mirror. Do you see any difference?  More than likely you don't. So, does that mean smoking is not harmful?  If that test would work, nobody would smoke, because if one cigarette made a noticeable difference, by the time you smoked a pack, you would already be in trouble. What actually happens is the changes to our health are so gradual that we just continue to accept them until it's too late. As I was pondering this topic, I was reminded of some notes I had taken a few Sundays ago in church, so I went back and looked them up. I realize that my pastor was speaking about a different topic, but I believe the same principle still applies. He said, "We have a tendency to confuse delayed judgment with no judgment."  Just because I develop some bad habits today and I don't see any negative consequences doesn't mean that they aren't coming. What really happens is those consequences come on us so slowly that we don't even notice them at first. Consider this scenario:  On January 1, you weigh 150 pounds, and each month afterward you still weigh the same until the first of May, when you have added one pound. You're not alarmed because you don't feel or look any different, especially when you go another four months before you add another pound. The trend continues as you average gaining only one pound every four months, which comes out to a mere three pounds in one year. No big deal, right?  Any of us would be content to gain only three pounds a year.  Now let's fast-forward twelve years, when we look in the mirror and realize that we are thirty-six pounds heavier than when we started. How many of us are okay with the likelihood of being thirty-six pounds heavier twelve years from now?  Since we don't have the ability to see ourselves a dozen years down the road, we allow it to happen because the change comes on so slowly. If we were to change that much overnight, it would freak us out. I'm just using weight as an example, but the same principle holds true for practically every aspect of our lives, including our finances, our spiritual condition, our relationships, our marriage, etc. Human beings will accept almost anything as long as it's given to us in small doses. How many of us can be honest enough to admit that we now allow movies and television shows with immoral subject matter into our homes that we would not have accepted twelve years ago? Changes like that don't occur instantly, but they happen in tiny increments. Now, let's take a quick look at it from the opposite angle. How many of you would like to see yourself weighing thirty-six pounds less in twelve years?  It didn't come on you overnight and it won't come off overnight. Progress may seem slow, but progress is progress. Actually, we can fix things in a much shorter period of time than it took us to get there, but it will still require persistence and patience. It took me a year and a half to lose sixty-two pounds, which comes out to just under one pound per week. It seemed slow at the time, and at times I became impatient, but if I had given up, it never would have happened. This article is as much to me as it is anyone. Over the years since I made my big change, I've allowed some of that weight to gradually come back on, but it's now coming back off again, slowly but surely. I just have to remind myself that it takes time and determination. I've done it before, and I'm doing it again. Preston