Change your mind, change your body

So big Jan is not so big anymore or at least as fat.

I’ve given away 58lb since May 12^th, 2012, and was another 20lb lighter on May 12^th than when I was at my heaviest three years ago. At one time I was 436lb. I am now 345lb. And now I’m going to tell you all the secrets of my success and how easy it was. I have no secrets and it was not easy. This is my story and I’m not going to go into the craziness of how many ding-dongs and bags of chip dipped in milk I ate. I am going to tell you how I’m work my program which will not be the same as yours but you may find that my program has pieces that fit yours. Test out what I have to say but don’t let it hem in what you try – the more tools and help you have the better.

The first chapter of my journey started years ago the first time I got the courage to take off my shirt is public letting it all hang out despite the shame. And the end to this story has not happened, if it has an end. However, change has happened. The most drastic change was the change of mind.

Since I was about 10 when I broke my arm on the last day of school I have eaten to take away pain then hated myself for the way I looked. It took the better part of 25 year to figure this one thing out and relate it to my situation (and for all you out there that think I’m mentally deficient, standardized testing disagrees). If you hate something at best you don’t want it around at worst you want to destroy it. I hated my body. I either did not want to have it or I wanted to destroy it. Think about that.

There is no change, no compromise, no learning about is point of view or no understanding its needs when you hate something. You just do your best to marginalize it and destroy it. That’s what I did.

Somehow, before I killed myself my twisted mind always ready with the tactics and strategies for war remembered the saying from Sun Tzu's The Art of War if you know your enemy and yourself you can win many battle without a loss. I started to try and know my body. The more knowledge of my body I had, the less I hated it and the more I understood it. You cannot be enemies with something you truly understand. Understanding lead to not hating, and almost liking my body which started the change.

If your enemy is yourself, you will destroy yourself.

Knowing your enemy will change hated to empathy.

You can only change what you care for and have knowledge of.

Change your mind, change your body.

My change of my body would never happen if my change of mind did not occur. Working on that change was the hardest step towards a new life. It took me 25 years and the change is not finished. Last week, I doubted myself and saw my body as the enemy for one morning. But I fought it by asking why am I suddenly unhappy with my progress, I told people that would understand, I understood everyday will not be a good one, and every bad day is just one day, and most of all I remembered if myself is my enemy, I will destroy myself.

English: where is the genderless pronoun?

English has become one of the most used languages in the world. It has gained this status not by being easy to learn or logical – dyslexics like me know this all too well. It’s one greatest languages because of its ability to take from other languages and change with the times. This is best expressed by Webster’s Dictionary adding and subtracting words from English with each new printing. With words like bling and jiggy added why not add a genderless pronoun?

The first argument against the genderless pronoun is that we already have one. In the dictionary (a least mine) he is defined as: anyone (without reference to sex); that person. He used without reference to sex? Really. There is no argument here, he refers to a man. If that was not the case writers in business, technical, entertainment, government and legal worlds would always use he and never struggle with he/she or alternating he or she every other example.

The second is that a genderless pronoun is a politically correct solution which takes away from free speech. Right. Well, it would be a politically correct solution if the genderless form was used to address a group of people of one gender when there is no chance that group will be made up of other genders. In this world how often does that happen?

The third argument is the most irrational therefore hard to argue against, tradition. All those taught the Queen’s English will surely be up in arms about any change to English, let alone this one. Fuck em’. Just for argument sake, the Queen’s English has changed. The business world no longer uses the indented paragraph. The double space after a period is no longer a part of publishing. The stark truth is English is so universal because it accepts change. English would be better off with a genderless personal pronoun than without one.

English has already adopted many genderless terms for positions that once held a gender based title. Gone from professional usage are words like, actress, stewardess, fireman, policeman and fisherman. Yes, it was hard to change. I for one, could not get my head around fisher instead of fisherman because a fisher is a crack in a rock or a ferret like mammal. But all people who fish are not men so fisherman is not right.

The only room for argument is what the genderless impersonal pronoun should be? I suggest thay... yes, spelt with an a.