The Gift of Constipation... I Shit You Not

Tolerance is not a virtue… Courage, wisdom, love – those are virtues.

But why is it that people talk about tolerance as if it’s a virtuous characteristic? Some of the most *miserable* men and women I know are the ones who can tolerate the most suffering.

While tolerance may be an ideal characteristic if you’re doing a bid in jail, adopting the limiting belief that you’re a “strong” person because you can tolerate suffering is simply, fool’s pride. That is, of course, if the suffering isn’t absolutely required.

To unnecessarily tolerate suffering is masochistic, not noble, and mutates personal freedom into a spiritual penitentiary.

It’s the gift and the curse [insert Jay-Z reference here] – the people who can withstand the most discomfort often do the least about it. Let’s make that a quotable:

“The people who can withstand the most discomfort often do the least about it.”

But when the shit becomes so densely backed up that it feels like Mike Tyson is squaring off with your stomach every 10 seconds, you’ll figure out how to dip, dodge, and weave your way outta that ring. Allow elaboration…

Happy Meals

Happy Meals used to be my joint. The 4 pack of Chicken McNuggets that came complimentary with a small side of fries and Coca-Cola – whoooooooo! As we said in the early 90s, that was da bomb. Don’t get me started on the plastic-wrapped Hamburglar toy included in this operation, and god forbid it was the Monopoly scratch-off month. Boardwalk, here I come baby.

My affinity for the aforementioned Happy Meal is the reason why 7 year olds don’t have existential crises. We lived for them.

Once a week, mom used to pick me up from elementary school during lunch and take me in this atrocious monster of an unheated over-sized vehicle – a 1972 Chevrolet Classic Caprice – around the corner to Mickey D’s.

At 7 years old, THIS was my happy hour.

I’d come back to school lit up, loving life, and walking down the hallway infused with all the swag you could ever imagine a 2nd grader possessing. But not long after I arrived at my desk and buckled down for class, something unexplainable happened.

With exponentially increasing intensity, the swag started shifting to discomfort. And discomfort, rapidly transformed to dramatic trauma.

With the limited language capabilities of a dip-shit 7 year old, I’d attempt to articulate to the teacher what I was feeling. But being one of the (self-proclaimed) cool kids, talking publicly about my pain felt like I was starting a PR campaign that’d be broadcasted into 1/2 of my classmates’ homes. Never the less, I was hurting – hardcore – and my mom was gone, so I spoke up.

Teach suggested I attempt to utilize the bathroom. So, hunched over and hugging my stomach, I swaggerlessly speed-walked to the nearest bathroom stall with my mandatory appointed hallway-buddy leisurely lagging behind.

I didn’t know it then but all the grease from the happy meal turned my stomach upside down, inside out, and all knotted up. It felt like Mike Tyson (then in his prime) was squaring off with my stomach every 10 seconds, landing punch after punch… uppercut, hook, straight shot. It was absolutely intolerable and mortifyingly unexplainable to my hallway-buddy who was waiting for 1/2 an hour outside the toilet-stall.

All I could do was hunch myself over, and pray to god (in the way 2nd graders do) to please, help me out!

At 7 years old, this torturous pain became a reoccurring visitor for the next decade of my life.

The Gift of Constipation

Ask any lady I’ve ever pillow-talked with, and they’ll tell you I’m a sensitive guy. And apparently, I have a sensitive stomach. This is a gift, and a curse.

The curse is that if I mindlessly eat greasy food and intake low amounts of dark green vegetables, I will be curled up constipated on the toilet, clutching my belly – badly – incurring excruciating amounts of pain that only prune juice can rapidly remedy.

The gift of constipation is that I have some super-salubrious eating habits. And when I start slacking on my nutrition game, my stomach doesn’t take shit from me.

This has made me a smoothie-magoothie master.

Every morning that I wake up at home, I head into the kitchen to whip up a gigantic green drink. Not because it tastes better than steak and eggs – it doesn’t. And not because Eggs Benedict isn’t more appetizing – it is.

I make a smoothie because after 27 years of my life, I know that this is THE most beneficial thing I can eat in the morning. Simple.

And while I’d love to tell you I have the heroic strength and super-human willpower to rock this habit daily based on the long-term benefits it provides, that’s simply not the essence of it. The essence of it is that I’ve never gotten sick or constipated when I’ve consistently had my smoothie every single morning.

Spinach, broccoli, water, protein, flax-seed, almond butter, banana and a little frozen fruit. Constipation can’t fuck with that.

When I was 7 years old, torturously sitting in that bathroom stall – I didn’t know what was happening… I didn’t know myself… and I didn’t know what to do.

“Does freedom have a meaning if you’re trapped in your ways?” ―Cormega

Trust Your Struggle

Pain can be a wonderful motivator and wise guru. Pay attention when it talks. Don’t dismiss it with tolerance.

Imagine living a decade of your life never knowing that the excruciatingly debilitating pain you feel is because you need to make a *simple* adjustment to your diet. Without that knowledge of self, you’d think that the universe was conspiring to kill you.

Now imagine the alternative… Knowledge of self steps in the scene and, with a little extra attention to detail, BAM, you take the pain and learn where it originates from.

*Holy shit!*

Suddenly, you figure out how to cure that pain, and before long, the thing which tortured you for a decade doesn’t exist anymore. In fact, that pain you used to have has even helped you become healthier. That is, as long as you put your own green-smoothie-esque fundamental practice in place, make a commitment to regularly rocking it, and have the support structure to make it permanent!

The coach in me couldn’t wrap this story up without asking…

In what areas of YOUR life have you built up a self-imprisoning tolerance for suffering? Lack of love? Purpose? Excitement? Fulfillment? Health? (Let us know in the comments below!)

 “To suffer unnecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.” ―Viktor E. Frankl

There you have it my friend… prune juice for the soul.

Do some shit.