11. What Three Weeks of Fasting Taught Me

I participated in a three week annual fast organized by my church. Essentially, I fasted from all leisure media consumption and all foods except fruits, vegetables and water. This was my third year participating and you’d expect me to be a veteran by now but, it was still challenging. It gets easier, but it's never easy.

I took the necessary precautions. I lent my Nintendo switch game console to my friend for the weeks. I set my Mac on focus mode for 504 hours. This blocked access to social media websites, as well as other leisure sites like youtube. On my phone I offloaded my social media apps and turned off all their notifications settings. I stocked up on mushrooms and potatoes. It was time.

It was difficult. It always is. Not having the option to indulge in comfortable things like fatty or meaty foods or watch something on Netflix during down times was difficult. No coffee was probably the culprit for my headache during the first few days. I became increasingly bored and restless when I finished my work. I literally felt like I had nothing to do. On top of that, I was always hungry.

I slowly came to notice so many areas of my life I could improve and work at. Inertia (the tendency to remain constant) was keeping me from doing so. Complacency and comfort are not bad things, but they are not the breeding grounds for progress. During the fast I gained clarity regarding my relationship with food and media. I realized they were dictating much of my time and energy. Because I wasn't immersed in them during the fast, I was able to stand back objectively and evaluate my relationship with them in light of my ultimate goals and desires.

And so, I made a few changes. First, I acknowledged that I did not need eat what I wanted every day to be happy. I just didn't. Yet, I let the food I eat dictate my mood. The food I ate would determine my day’s outlook. Good food is pleasurable however, it did not deserve a seat in my life decision making. I realized many times I would compromise personal health standards or overstep wise financial boundaries simply because “I wanted to eat that.” It was a valuable time of learning self-control, how to deny myself my superficial desires to gain clarity. I lost over four kilograms of weight in just three weeks, and I look and feel better than than I've felt in a long while.

Second, I realized how dependant I was on media to “entertain” me. I felt restless, even uncomfortable in resting without being able to watch or listen to something or someone. Why? I had grown accustomed to stimulating myself with media, so when it was suddenly absent my body reacted negatively. Intense boredom was something I experienced in my first few days of the fast. However, over the days I realized there was so much I could be doing to progress my life. I could offer no excuses, since I had the time, so I began doing them. One thing I did was prepare for the future. I began to plan and brainstorm some personal projects I could undertake to create better systems for myself. Things like learning a new method of organizing personal files or writing up some values and goals for the next quarter. I spent more time with my musical instrument and practicing some new techniques. I started archiving old documents and notes. I scanned them and archived them digitally. I was able to throw away kilograms worth of papers, and counting! I caught up on calendaring deadlines for important tasks such as renewing my health card.

There were many things for which I thought, “I'll do them once I have time.” Yet the odd thing was, once I did have time, I opted for mindless leisure media consumption. My issue was not that I didn't have enough time. My issue was even given the time, I would rather do what was immediately pleasurable than invest effort into bettering my life. This was my inertia. Intentionally restricting myself of comfort for a season helped me take action to overcome the inertial barrier and promote positive change. The fast subscribed me to a more challenging lifestyle. I learned intentionally subjecting yourself to seasons of challenge, especially at the cost of your own comfort, leads to explosive growth. It just takes a few weeks of discipline and some mushrooms and potatoes.