The problem is, we’ve become increasingly self-involved as we’ve struggled with overeating and weight gain. We worry about what the scale is going to say the next time we step on it. We nervously glance at ourselves in the mirror or in the reflecting glass of shop windows as we pass by. We spend a lot of mental energy monitoring our behavior around food. We’ve been told to keep food diaries, to examine what we eat, how much, when, and speculate as to why. Although this advice can help us be more honest with ourselves, it sure doesn’t help us become more self-forgetting. Some self-understanding is helpful, but it easily becomes excessive self-examination.
We’ve become more and more distracted by the techniques of dieting. We count calories and carefully measure our food. We read labels and calculate the fat grams or carbohydrates per serving. We search the latest magazine articles and watch infomercials to learn about a new breakthrough method of weight loss. These distractions have taken us away from full involvement in the world around us.
We also fall into self-absorbed thoughts about future weight loss. We calculate how many weeks before we reach our goal weight. Then, we daydream about the shopping trip for smaller clothes. Even worse, all this thinking about weight loss encourages us to indulge pride. We imagine others admiring us. We fantasize about the glorious days ahead when we’ll surprise everyone with our accomplishment and new body. When we’re on a roll, we might even indulge self-righteousness, looking down with mild disdain upon others who are still sinking in the mire of this complex problem.
All this self-preoccupation is exhausting. How many people are accomplishing far less than they can because this problem takes up so much of their time and energy? How many relationships haven’t started because we’re too involved with our own problems? How many adventures have been shelved, waiting for the day when we’ll look and feel better about ourselves?
Selfishness is both a cause and effect of the problem of temptation. When I originally defined temptation, I alluded to the idea of selfishness. We are led into temptation by ordinary human selfishness as well as natural tendencies. I raise the idea of selfishness carefully. Overeaters are not more selfish than other people. It may not even occur to us that we’re being selfish because we feel more like victims, of tendencies beyond our control, than like selfish perpetrators. Nonetheless, it’s in there.
Any time we seek to receive for ourselves, there is an element of selfishness in the motive. This even happens when we try to find happiness in healthier ways. We need to take care of ourselves, yes, but excessive concern for ourselves easily becomes selfishness. Selfishness is the insatiable seeking to receive for oneself. Moreover, the effort to secure happiness is futile. The more we try to capture it, the more it eludes us. The promise of happiness is real, but we need to break out of the tight circle of self in order to realize that promise.
Turn my eyes from looking at vanities;
give me life in your ways.
Psalm 119:37
