I had a friend ask me the other day why I didn't drink. I happily explained the basics, then she clarified with:
"No, I mean, why don't you drink soda?"
Doh.
I have a great set of reasons for the soda question and it sounds even more weird than the first set of reasons that I gave her for the misinterpreted first question.
"Why I don't drink pop" starts with, "Oh, it makes my feet hurt" and ends with "it gives me a headache." It made my first answer sound downright reasonable.
The more coherent answer is: I have learned that my body metabolizes sugar in a bad way, much like a diabetic, so I spike for about one second, then crash for the rest of the day, experiencing fatigue and aches that I don't care to feel ever again. I have seen the cause and effect too many times.
But it got me thinking... What if I had never seen the correlation? What if, every time I crashed, I thought, "Oh, it's a bad day" or "Oh, I'm always so tired" or some other generalized, non-specific, non-seeking response. I know so many people (myself included) who don't make those cause & effect connections as par for the course.
Luckily, I grew up in a Primary class where Consequences were the Topic of the Week every week and a little bit of it sunk in. After spending all my college years on the pop-o-roller-coaster-of-doom (drinking those big mugs of pop) and after several years of early motherhood in the same unpleasant way, I finally saw the simple, obvious correlation.
Maybe next time someone asks why I don't drink I'll say, "Because I finally realized that all actions have a consequence," and then do some kind of yoga Om sign.
Hehe. It really was my first step in pattern-seeking.
