Making a Resolution:
Willpower is overrated. I’ve heard about people going cold
turkey on bad habits - too much smoking, cracking knuckles, alcohol, gnashing
teeth, biting your lip, etc. “Yeah! I woke up one morning and decided enough! And
from that day on I never touched another cigarette!” I don’t know about that. I
just don’t believe in superpowers. But I believe in powerful and persistent intention
subconsciously leading to realization. If you train your mind to want
something, believe in it, try it over and over again, one day you will achieve
it “cold turkey”. For me, I was consuming an inordinate amount of cane sugar in my tea. Sackfulls. Boatloads. I knew if I didn't do something about it I'd probably join the long list of those making big pharma very rich on my meagre resources. But my willpower had failed me too many times.
Quitting
So by the time I decided to try quitting on sugar consumption
in my tea, it was almost just to humor myself because I'd given up trying. I had just watched that TED talk
on the 30-day challenge where you try to change a habit by doing something for
30 days. I got my cup, wrote “Sugar-free zone” on it, and used it as a visual
reminder to stick to my challenge (that trick was not on the talk). I posted it on Facebook as my contract with the
universe.
Day one of sugarless tea was nasty. So was day two, and
three... By Day 10, I knew I wasn’t cut out for this sugarless shit. I needed my
fix. That was also the day I read about the sugar poisoning in Kenya. Some political
mafia had imported tons of sugar not meant for human consumption and released
it to the market.
The Sugar Mafia
Behind every addictive personal habit, there's a shadowy mafia reaping big from your weakness. An inquiry was launched by the government, and the report that came out was also
contaminated with bribery, sugar baron names missing from it, and total
acrimony in parliament. The issue died there. Kenya’s parliament is a
graveyard, not a birthplace of a people’s aspirations. Calls to boycott sugar
consumptions were met with a profuse production of funny memes by Kenya’s
social media. The very people who were victims thought the whole issue was
funny. It's what people who get schlonged by the system over and over again do.
The Spell of Tenga
It was on the day I read about that sugargate that I decided
I was going to finish this sugar-free race. This was proof that when you sign a
contract with the universe and make it public She will throw you a lifeline at
your weakest moment and bid you finish your race. 30 days was nothing. I merged
my personal challenge with a national quest for justice, and I didn’t care who
was or was not boycotting. I was under the spell of Tenga, the Mossi people's goddess of justice. I posted my boycott and dared to look silly. I was
all the way in the US, far from ground zero of Kenya’s sugar contamination war.
Winning the Saccharide War
By the time Day 30 came around, my taste buds were adjusting
very well. I decided since I had done very well, I was going to reward myself
with a replacement for sugar after the completion of the challenge. I started
taking tea with honey. Science told me the metabolism of honey, a monosaccharide, is different from that of sugar, a disaccharide. Knowing my digestive system issues,
I knew there were benefits to be reaped from that mono guy. I also knew I wasn’t
necessarily changing the eventual saccharide content in my body by doing honey. Making it easier for my small intestines to absorb the sugars was apparently the only gain, and a very good one too because we don't want to talk about leaky gut syndrome. Oh, I also got a little bit more nutrients from raw honey.
Then a wonderful thing happened. About two months
down the line, I ran out of honey, and my tea has tasted just fine without it since then. My
taste buds had come full-circle into a joyful saccharide-free zone. I get plenty of my necessary sugars from other food sources.
Chance
Of course I’m healthier for it. This journey has
improved the quality of my life because my body has been thanking me. It was personal. As for
longevity, that’s not for me to worry about because the way human existence is
configured, chance lords over us all.
“I returned, and saw under the sun,
that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet
bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men
of skill; but time and chance happens to them all” – the bible, Ecc 9:11
Let’s just say it’s agreed that healthy living often has
longevity as a side effect. I’ll take that side effect if I experience it. More
than anything, I’ll take the high that comes with winning small personal
victories. Hurry up 2019, I’m dying to meet you because you and I have life to
live!
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| A painting of Tenga, earth Goddess, by Zonagirl. "Tenga’s themes are balance, justice, morality and freedom. Her symbols are soil. Among the Mossi of Senegal, Tenga presides over all matters of justice and morality." |
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