TRUTH IS NOT TRUTH

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

In the morning and in the evening. Instead of praying and exercising: “Should I tell people with obesity that they are fat? Do I need to tell the badly dressed people that they look ridiculous? What if you want to help them become better or even save their health?

No, don’t. Categorically.

There seems to be a persistent idea in our society that this is mature "honest" behavior. “Don't be offended, but a girl with a mustache is awful. I'm just a straight person, I say what I think! It's not difficult to lighten them”.

No, unfortunately, this is not a mature behavior, but the level of a child under 5-7 years old, who has not yet developed reflection and the ability to put himself in the place of another person. In general, in our culture there is no distinction between mature expression of feelings and reaction - splashing out your emotions into the outside world without comprehension and internal processing. Sometimes it's scary.

Therefore, to the idea that it is useful to express their feelings, people often react like this: "Well, you know, if you always express feelings, then I will start hitting everyone's face and they will put me in the department!" Beating the face is just a reaction. To tell a person who did not ask your valuable opinion about his weight: "Oh my God, you ruin your heart and joints by not losing weight!" or "You look like a caterpillar in this dress, I'd rather tell you the truth than others will see!" - the same.

And the processing of feelings, which is just a mature reaction, looks like this. First, the person notes: "I am experiencing poorly controlled rage", "I am wildly annoyed by this person and the way he looks", "I am very anxious."

Then he thinks: “Why? What exactly is causing me anxiety, rage or irritation? Only as a result of this deliberation, he wonders if it is worth voicing these feelings at all, and if so, why? what is he going to achieve by this? will it achieve? and in what form should it be done then?

And yes, if your goal is to "save" a person, then on mature reflection you will most likely come to the conclusion that he already knows everything better than you. It is unlikely that a person with a BMI above average has not read scary articles about obesity and never heard about their risks from doctors. A smoker can give you a long lecture on the dangers of smoking - he knows more about its consequences than a nonsmoker. A person who is ridiculously dressed or feels in order - which means that there is nothing to save him from; or has other reasons to dress like that, from lack of money to embarrassment to try new clothes. And then you just humiliate him with your comment. So it's better to abstain.

Somewhere in this gap there should also be such a thought: "What causes me such strong feelings, in general, concerns me directly?"

This is a complex thought that requires careful thought. Because it is very, very unlikely that someone else is directly concerned with someone else's BMI. The only option when yes is when a person, for example, has a diabetic condition or another with a direct threat to life, it is medically confirmed, and he is your close relative or spouse. But even in this case, the endless, every day message about how he destroys his health by improper diet will be an empty drip on the brain. If the person is not ready to be treated and adjust the diet, your words will only make things worse.

A foreign appearance with a 99% probability does not concern anyone at all. Very controversial cases when it can:

- your child put on something to school that is clearly not allowed by the rules, and you will be called “on the carpet”;

- you are going out with your spouse and he (s) put on something that violates the dress code and literally threatens to ruin your reputation. Chances are, you are wrong and will not destroy - but if you are wildly uncomfortable, perhaps there is something to discuss here.

In all other cases, someone else's appearance, the percentage of fat in the composition of body tissues, if this body is not yours, the attitude to depilation and the manner of dressing does not concern you in any way.

Arguments like: “I hate to look at a fat woman in leggings, so she has to change clothes" or "Well, it’s unpleasant to look at unshaven armpits, and therefore everyone around should shave them," return us to the point about processing feelings without immediately splashing out.

The honest results of this processing can be as follows:

“I feel a wild rage because I believe that I have the right to flirt and wear attention-grabbing clothes, only being in size zero and doing an hour and a half training every second day. And then I discovered that next to me a woman weighing under 100 kilograms believes that she already deserves it without prior preparation. Moreover, someone is responsible for her flirting! It infuriates me and at the same time makes me want to cry from powerlessness."

or like this:

“I see that this person has arrogated to himself the right to judge his own appearance on his own, without comparison with the generally recognized beauties / beauties, the norms of beauty practices and photographs from glossy magazines. I am forty years old and not once in these forty years have I exercised such a right. It gives me a complex mixture of pain, sadness, anger, envy and frustration."

or like this:

“It is very difficult for me to calmly look at everything that somehow does not correspond to my idea of the ideal. On an imperfectly washed floor. On imperfect, from my point of view, appearance. On your own and someone else's imperfect life. Immediately it hurts me, badly and itches everything imperfect to fix. Which is what I am doing, so take it off immediately!"