How Much Do You Want to Live?
The thought of how we adapt to circumstances no matter how unhealthy reminds me of a photo I once saw. At first glance it was of a magnificent sea turtle, at least 100 pounds, but this wasn’t a normal-looking turtle – it was shaped like a figure eight, with a very narrow center and an enlarged front and back. Looking more closely, you could see that something was constraining its midsection, a piece of plastic – the kind that holds a six-pack of soda together. Somehow it had gotten wrapped around the turtle as a baby, as it grew, it contorted itself around the plastic.
It was a very sad picture, making me think of our own unique process of development, how things happen – that we are unaware of or have no control of – that distort and deform us in unhealthy or abnormal ways. Changing our story and our beliefs is like cutting off the plastic. Our body and our psyche adjust and our new story and identity redefine us. We just have to be willing.
