The new movie “Limitless”, starring Bradley Cooper as a blocked writer seeking a pharmaceutical boost to meet a publisher’s deadline, inspired this post.
The movie is built around several cliches, including the one known as “blocked writer syndrome” (I’m always incredulous when I hear “blocked writers with publishers’ deadlines”, since I have 3 books ready for publication right here on my desk, can always meet a deadline, am a self-starter and finisher (because I can coach myself out of any hesitancy), and have no contract yet) — but its bigger themes include “power is seductive” and “today’s world lacks humanity.”
Another cliche caught my attention though. It’s the “quick fix.” Our growing cultural belief that we can “fast forward” through important growth experiences in life and get instant results is fascinating to me. When I started coaching people with addiction and food issues 10 years ago, I truly expected the “quick fix” belief to wane with time.
After all, we get smarter as we go through time, collecting more and more information in the grey cells, right?
Hmmmmm.
Here are some things I’ve heard this week:
“Just cut it off, I don’t see why they haven’t figured out how to do that,” one client said of her excess weight.
“Keep me in the game until they get the right pill,” another begged.
“I’ll give it (the newest diet) another six weeks, then I’m just going to have surgery, stop eating completely and get skinny,” a third reasoned.
I hear it all the time.
The interesting part of the movie was when everyone who used the drug starts dying.
Ooooops!
Side effects. The OTHER SIDE of the quick fix. Puhleeze don’t tell me ANYONE is surprised when that happens!
Why is it so easy to ignore the fallout that will come later?
I see plenty of people who were on high protein diets last year and are paying the price with poor health and slow metabolisms today.
Others are boot-camp exercise junkies in withdrawal. They are in withdrawal because (1) they are injured, (2) having surgery or (3) can no longer keep up the pace of 2-3 hour workouts.
It’s time to start connecting today with what occurred yesterday. We may not have swallowed a literal “magic pill” yesterday, but we swallowed something that promised to produce weight loss quickly or we wouldn’t be HERE today.
(Really, there should be a law against using “weight loss” and “quickly” in the same sentence. If you want to keep it, speed is not of the essence; in fact, it’s to be consciously avoided.)
Our bodies are a direct reflection of everything we thought and did yesterday and the week before that and… the month before that… and the year….
There’s a scene in the movie where Bradley Cooper’s character meets his old girlfriend and she is deathly ill from the medication. It’s probably the most affecting scene in the movie because you see the physical devastation of the drug. I couldn’t help but see some of my clients in her position – their bodies wasted by years of dieting and aging prematurely, they desperately want their strength and vitality back. This always makes me sad.
Now, remember this is Hollywood!
So, in the film, our [choke, choke] “hero” twists his way past the side effects. I guess there would be no movie with realism involved! The script tries to temper this break with reality by showing even more horrible repercussions to the “hero’s” humanity.
So, is that supposed to make us feel better? Will that stop anyone from wanting the quick fix?
Would you give up your humanity and be willing to be a cold autobot if it meant you could make the “quick fix” work?
If not, it’s time to change. Let’s get past quick fixes and stop treating our bodies like machines that can be abused by diets and starvation and — a la Hollywood — emerge victorious.
It has never worked.
Because, as we leave the diet-riddled world behind and take vital steps towards personal responsibility for our own health, we don’t just learn to treat our bodies well, we do find our essential humanity.
That may be what we were looking for all along.
