Can You Afford a Hole in Your Head?

I just spent $1056 cash on my mouth. I broke a filling. With half a jagged tooth in my mouth, I went to get it fixed. If there’s any confusion, no, I can’t afford that. Well, when I say I can’t afford it, I mean that in the conventional sense of the phrase, which is mostly used when people can, in fact, actually afford something, but that it would cause significant behavioral changes and other financial sacrifices.

I couldn’t help but wonder why I wasn’t devastated by this news and immediately connected this very example to something that I see on a daily basis as a coach. You see, I can afford $1056 to fix a glaring problem with my body somehow. I’ll just have to figure it out.

I can because I have to. These teeth, after all, are growing out of my fucking skull. If they aren’t my responsibility, then who’s are they? I can’t afford not to.

The trouble is, this isn’t common logic I see practiced. People “can’t afford” good food. Most people “can’t afford” to acquire basic abilities like health and fitness.

In every sense of the words, if you’re telling yourself you can’t afford to eat real food or to have basic human physical capacities you are choosing to be a victim. At what level of complacency do you mail in the idea that your own existence isn’t worth the money? If you’re eating processed food because you “can’t afford” grass-fed meats and real vegetables, understand that you sound like someone that would say I’d fix the hole in my jaw, but I can’t afford it. When you have a hole in your jaw, you figure it out. You’d make more money. You’d spend less. You’d find a way. You’d borrow it. You’d kill a guy.

You don’t just walk around with a hole in your head and not get things in order, right?

To be blunt, if you don’t eat real food, can’t pick your body weight off the ground, can’t squat, or can’t sustain running 800m at a good clip because of financial reasons, you sound like someone with a hole in your head weighing the “Pros” and “Cons.”

Figure it out. You don’t really have a choice.

 

Logan Gelbrich

@functionalcoach

 

 

PS – Since this is being published on the internet, some brilliant folks are going to read this on their expensive computer or iPhone and only hear a privileged rant. To those folks: “You’re completely missing the point.”