{"id":28322,"date":"2022-09-08T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-08T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oncolink.org\/?p=13741"},"modified":"2024-11-03T15:13:16","modified_gmt":"2024-11-03T15:13:16","slug":"self-destruction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/self-destruction\/","title":{"rendered":"Self Destruction"},"content":{"rendered":"

I Didn\u2019t Want to Be Who I Am<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m a hypocrite. My rational self tells me obviously true things about my self-destructive habits. Yet I continue on my road to nowhere health-wise. I came pretty close to dying of cancer. I want to be healthy for as long as possible. But you couldn\u2019t tell that by how I act.<\/p>\n

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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Thankfully I don\u2019t chain smoke, drink vodka by the quart, abuse pain pills, or drive recklessly. My self-destruction is far more subtle, socially acceptable, and shared by millions.<\/p>\n

Moving But Staying in the Same Place<\/strong><\/p>\n

I graduated from college with a degree in broadcast journalism. I enjoy talking to people, writing, I\u2019m curious, and I have a good voice for radio (I really do), so I thought it would be a good fit. Another reason was I thought this career could get me far from my hometown and parents. For a while I thought I\u2019d be a foreign correspondent, but the allure of getting killed in someone else\u2019s war or catching typhoid waned over time.<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t ask for better, more loving parents. My hometown was a safe, and in many ways blessed, place to grow up. But both my parents and hometown were about as unpredictable as tomorrow\u2019s sunrise. Life didn\u2019t seem to be endless possibilities, but railroad tracks headed off into the horizon. I couldn\u2019t imagine a life so set in its ways. I followed my brother and sister out of Dodge.<\/p>\n

Fast forward 30 or so years later. My time in broadcast journalism was short-lived, and I\u2019ve changed careers like some people change socks. I live about 150 miles from my hometown. We\u2019re about halfway between Philadelphia and New York City. I\u2019m much happier here than if I stayed in my hometown, but fundamentally both towns are not very different.<\/p>\n

Living Inside a Robot<\/strong><\/p>\n

Though my location\u2019s changed, I\u2019ve inherited a life that\u2019s a collection of habits. What I\u2019ll do this week is pretty much what I did last week, 24 weeks ago, and 132 weeks ago. Even my days seem largely identical. For better and worse, in many ways I\u2019ve become like my parents.<\/p>\n

Habits, in and of themselves, aren\u2019t bad. Weight\u2019s always been a problem for me. I diet, I give up, my weight goes up, it goes down, it goes up. When I\u2019m stressed I eat. I eat out of habit, whether I\u2019m hungry or not.<\/p>\n

Unexpected weight loss is a symptom of Hodgkin\u2019s lymphoma. But not for me. I had to get white hot fevers, drenching night sweats, and skin that felt covered in poison ivy. I gained weight with all the steroid-induced three-course meals I ate. Between that and the hair loss, I had the Uncle Fester<\/a> look down.<\/p>\n

About 20 years ago, I went on a low-carb diet and lost a lot of weight. Beer was not an option, so I thought of something else I thought might be fun to drink and wouldn\u2019t cause more weight. How about diet soda<\/a>? I\u2019ve been drinking it just about every day since<\/a>, slowly embalming my kidneys.<\/p>\n

When I take a break from work, I drink diet soda instead of smoking a cigarette or getting another cup of coffee. Sometimes it physically relaxes me, like my body finally got something it needs. I usually plan errands so I can go to a Wawa and get a giant, ice-filled cup of sweet, bubbly happiness.<\/p>\n

Habits are Comforting Until They Destroy Your Life<\/strong><\/p>\n

Being overweight, sedentary (I\u2019ve been in a chair most of my working life), and ingesting unhealthy food and drinks can cause a number of potentially fatal diseases, including cancer. Yet here I am, living a life as predictable as the Earth circling the sun, coasting into health oblivion.<\/p>\n

I know I\u2019m setting the stage for something I\u2019ve lived before, and dread happening again, a health crisis. But my conscious, rational self is a spectator as I live life on autopilot. Why can\u2019t I change?<\/p>\n

Am I just weak? I wouldn\u2019t say no. The more past failures, the more future efforts seem doomed, so why bother? I know how finite life is, which is a double-edged sword. Should my life be as healthy as possible to enjoy the time I have more fully or should I indulge in Coke Zero, coffee ice cream with Health Bar bits, and corned beef and enjoy the fleeting, if ultimately poisonous, pleasures while I can?<\/p>\n

The Washington Post has a personal advice column. A recent piece<\/a> was an inquiry by the adult child of a father in a downward physical spiral, living an unhealthy life, impervious to the advice of others. It reached the point where the person said they lost respect for a father who apparently lost respect for himself. <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to be that guy. All I have to do now is figure out how to avoid a fate I seem programmed to achieve. You can\u2019t solve a problem you don\u2019t admit to. Maybe writing this will help.<\/p>\n

\n

Rodney Warner is a freelance writer, cancer survivor, and cancerphobe. www.rodneywarner.net<\/a><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I Didn\u2019t Want to Be Who I Am I\u2019m a hypocrite. My rational self tells me obviously true things about my self-destructive habits. Yet I continue on my road to nowhere health-wise. I came pretty close to dying of cancer. I want to be healthy for as long as possible. But you couldn\u2019t tell that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5137],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28322"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44853,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28322\/revisions\/44853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}