What you want vs. what you need

The hardest part about being a grown up (for me anyway) is taking ownership of all aspects of self-care.

Most people don’t want to do most of the things they need to do to stay healthy.

I don’t want to floss my teeth or go to bed early or eat (mostly) healthy or go the gynecologist or the dentist or practice meditation or stretch every day or change out of my pajamas or put my clothes away and clean my room.

Not in the moment, anyway.

It’s a lot easier to do that stuff when you’re a kid and you have someone making you do all the not-so-fun things that keep you healthy.

The kids and I have had many conversations about wants vs. needs.

A Squishmallow is not a need. Neither is a new X-Box game, a cell phone upgrade, a 4th pair of sneakers, or even a pack of gum.

We still get wants and needs confused when we become adults.

People say they don’t exericse because they don’t like it. It’s boring. They don’t want to do it.

No kidding!

In the moment, I don’t want to exercise either!

I’d rather stay in my pj’s and robe all day long and never leave my house. In the winter, anyway.

I want to spend every day from November 1st to March 31st like this:

In the summer I want to spend every day sitting on the beach, reading books and napping.

But that’s not what I need.

Not every day.

I don’t like to exercise is not a reason to refuse to exercise.

Well it’s a reason, but not a good one.

Most people don’t like to exercise.

Most kids don’t want to brush their teeth, but we make them do it because we know what the consequences of not brushing their teeth are.

It’s going to cause problems for them down the road and it’s going to cost you lots of money.

This shit doesn’t change once you get older and there’s nobody around to make you exercise.

Not taking care of your teeth or your body or your overall health is going to catch up with you at some point.

There will be consequences. And they will likely be expensive.

You might not want to exercise.

But you need to exericse. Your body needs it, and your brain needs it.

Stop confusing short term wants with forever needs.

Most days I don’t want to exercise in the moment.

But I also don’t want to be depressed, unable to focus, sleeping like shit, and setting myself up for serious illness twenty years from now.

And I absolutely positively one million percent do not want to end up being a burden to my kids because I was too focused on wants – and not needs – in my 50s and 60s.

Being a grown up is hard. Doing what I need to do rather than what I want to do is hard.

But losing my independence and being a burden to my kids because I couldn’t see past my wants would definitely be the hardest thing of all.

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