Sometimes it is a wonder how humanity has accomplished so much, given our never ending search for the Least We Can Do. A recent article on exercise has pointed out that we may need much more exercise than we previously thought, to prevent weight gain and encourage weight loss. Numerous statements in the article and comments made about made it seem almost as if the amount of exercise is a mystical secret instead of the bloody obvious. Bottom line, calories consumed in excess of that which is burned results in weight (fat) gain, and calories burned in excess of calories consumed result in weight (not always wholly fat) loss.
But I digress, if you want to read about exercise, and weight loss, go here. I would like to address how somehow, we can only be bothered to do the very least to achieve a gain. This often results in extensive research, expensive purchases, and high risk activities to do what may be achievable quite easily with proper amount of time devoted to simple, well known pursuits. Few take into account, if the same (or less) effort and time were devoted to tried and true methods, one could easily attain the goals and have a much fuller pocket to boot.
This stems for humanity 's penchant for self-delusion. We want to believe there is a miracle solution, and barring that, we rationalize our understanding to fit the minimum effort. We neglect small errors in our hypothesis, and friction in the systems. Maybe the research was off about ten percent. Maybe the two chicken breasts were slightly larger than the ones in the calorie charts and maybe we weren 't walking as quickly as we thought. How do we plan for these unknowns?
We try to do the most, we try our best. If half an hour of exercise is all that is required, surely we will have met our goal with an hour. If we really want that A in the course, it might be worth reading the textbook twice and doing ALL of the problems, not just the assigned ones. The problem is, is that the things we say we want, we may not really want. It may just be what we are supposed to want. Who wants to be fat? Of course we want to lose wait. Who wants a C? Of course, we want an A.
Perhaps, we should word it, not as what we want, but what we are willing to strive for, to pursue. THAT might change our frame of mind. Instead of walking that half hour, and expect what we want, we can walk that half hour and ask ourselves, is that all we are prepared to do meet our goals? Instead of seeking the secret of "the Least We Can Do", we merely ask ourselves, "Have I really done enough?". we might finally spend our precious time pursuing (and achieving) our goals.
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