As of this tuesday, I’m 232 lbs. Down 120 lbs since August 10th. I have new clothes, a new outlook, and I may have added more than ten years to my life. I look and feel completely different. When I smile now, remarkably, I mean it. So why does everyone have something negative to say?

“Damn - are you sure it’s healthy?”
“You didn’t look fat before.”
“You’re just a really big guy.”
“You’ve lost enough - you don’t want to get too skinny!”
“Fasting? That’s dangerous - who are these doctors, anyway?”
“How can you possibly survive on 500 cals a day?”
“Doesn’t your metabolism slow down dramatically?”
“What are you going to do when you start eating food again?”
“But, you’ve lost it all before and gained it all back.”
“How are you going to handle temptation?”
“Come on, live a little, you’ve earned it.”

I get these questions or variants of them every single day. From acquaintances, from family, from friends, from total strangers eavesdropping they come, curiosity laced with disbelief and shaded by their own peccadilloes. Some of the people asking these questions are people I love. Why can’t they simply accept the miracle they see with their own eyes and be happy for me?

The answer is: people hate change. It’s as simple as that. I can prove it to you - try something different, radically different, and see what people say. Don’t just tell people what you intend to do, though that will certainly elicit opinions - act on it. Start training for that marathon. Start writing that book you’ve been working on since college. Start canceling nights on the town so you can take Spanish class, or Yoga, or a martial art. Start it and see what happens.

Then you’ll be emailing me saying, “I never would have noticed it before but people are COCKS.” Mixed in with the backhanded compliments and initial happy surprise are heavy dollops of personal biases and angry discontented inertia. As the Japanese say, “The nail that sticks up will be hammered down.”

Anyone making a move toward his dream immediately makes the others think about their own and why they haven’t yet come true. Perhaps they’re not thinking, “Who does that asshole think he is?” but they certainly are feeling it. It rocks the boat. Instead of “Don’t change - I like you just the way you are.” it’s “Don’t change - I like my life just the way it is.” And so they push on you. Subtly, softly, with a smile and a compliment, but they push.

Try it and you’ll see. And maybe now you’ll notice that the people who love you the most are probably the ones who enable your bad habits the most. They are the wife who overfeeds you, the boyfriend who encourages you to hang out at a bar when he should know you have a problem with alcohol, the gambler buddy who talks you into wasting hours playing no limit hold ‘em when you should be painting the house, the brother who brings you a little blow to ‘take the edge off.’ Insert your own example here. They love you, and they love you right where you are.

How do you swim upstream against such a tide? If everyone is a pod-person, how long can you possibly stay awake? Why not go with the flow? Why make everyone else unhappy - isn’t that selfish? Yep, it sure is. But guess what? If you want to accomplish anything out of the ordinary in your life, you need to be selfish. In fact, you need to be a dick.

“Nice guys finish last,” could be the most profound statement of all time. It doesn’t just apply to the guy in the PG-13 movie who we’re all hoping makes it happen with Mary Jane. It applies to the guy trying to lose weight, or the girl trying to get an education, or the mother trying to start a small business. It also applies to small things like the passive person trying to buy a car, or a house. Even to the nice guy in the karate class. In the long run, we may have a karmic surplus, but here on Earth, we have our asses handed to us.

When I started this program, I was borderline diabetic, having had Type II before, had high blood pressure, high resting heart rate, elevated liver function, high cholesterol, aches and pains, and my wife said my head looked like a potato. I knew immediately this program would work, and so I vowed to do whatever it took to see it through. My wife didn’t understand the process, and having the kids around didn’t help. So I did the unthinkable - I sent them away, overseas to live with the in-laws.

I stopped attending parties and informal dinners. I scaled back on my work - took fewer clients, worked remotely when possible. When people would talk about food, I would change the subject, forcibly. It really threw them off. I would avoid my enabling friends, at least in dangerous contexts, and I avoided my own enabling instincts by filling myself up with allowed foods. Hard to crave ice cream when you’re full on sugar-free popsicles. I emptied my cupboards, filled my schedule, and kept my head down. I didn’t even cut myself a break. Because when it comes down to it, your own inertia is the most powerful of all.

This reminds me of a saying I came up with in college, more than 10 years ago. It’s a pity it didn’t sink in until now. I think the best version of it is this:
“Do something once and it changes your mood.
Do it again and it changes your outlook.
Make it a habit and it changes your life.” –me

What I’m doing now is nothing short of completely reprogramming myself. This does not come easily. There are setbacks and drawbacks and takebacks and maybe even brokebacks. But I will persevere. What choice do I have? After all, it’s not “you are what you do.” It’s probably more like “You are what you do daily.” You are your habits, essentially. Any substantive change will be hard, and you’ll be fighting yourself the whole way. What I’m also telling you is you’ll be fighting everyone else as well.

My sister and her husband visited and reported back home that I was “eating sugar-free candy like crazy” and about my psychotic subject-changing. I didn’t mind. I could see their point, but I wasn’t about to let it stop me. I’m hoping when I’m done, they will all see it was worth it. Every missed lunch, dinner, or client. It was all in service to my goal.

Focus. Dogged Intensity. And Perseverance. If people want to call that being obsessed, fine. But that’s how things get done. That’s how molds get broken, and that, my friends, is how lives get changed. Not by being a nice guy. But temporarily, single-mindedly, being a dick.

Don’t go out of your way to hurt someone, but if you have something to do in this brief rabbit-fart of a life we have, DO IT. Don’t mess around, or you’ll be sitting on a stoop in your 80s talking about someday breaking out the easel and painting that masterpiece, or completing that dissertation. What would you do to have everything you ever wanted? Do it now.

And whatever you do - don’t let the bastards get you down. Now let me forcibly change the subject. </rant>