“The real secret of life — to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now.” – Alan Watts
What makes a junk food “junk”?
Really think about that for a moment.
We can all name a bunch of junk foods and junk ingredients — but the question isn’t “which foods are junk foods” — it’s “what makes them junk foods?”
Processed sugar is a “junk” food, but why?
And while we’re at it, why is processed sugar off the menu, while a banana — which comes in pretty damn hot at ~15g of high-glycemic sugar — is still bueno?
Simple:
A “junk” food requires more energy to process than it provides.
Instead of giving you energy, it robs you of energy.
While the banana brings along vitamins, enzymes, and fiber to help convert the sugar into usable energy, the sugar comes in empty-handed, and makes our body foot the bill.
Okay, cool — but why are we talking about nutrition?
Because this lesson goes double for the mental domain, where where most of our thoughts are nothing more than junk food for the mind:
Random empty calories — idle chatter, vague ideas, faint memories of an irrelevant past, fuzzy ideas about a hypothetical future…
…All of which drag our attention and energy away from from the present and weaken our ability to do (not to mention enjoy) whatever it is we’re doing in the moment.
The mind can be a precision blade that cuts through the deep questions of life and brings powerful visions from the imagination into reality.
But only when it isn’t busy being a junk collector.
The choice, with every thought, in every moment, is ours.
– T
P.S. In case you missed it yesterday, here’s:
