My Brain is a Bit Spoiled

I suppose you could consider me a bit of an expert on the brain.  I haven’t done any research on it, other than reading the occasional article, but I’ve had one all my life and occasionally used it.  My conclusion is…it’s a spoiled child.

First let’s establish it as ‘all knowing’.  I say ‘all knowing’ because anything we know, it knows.  Though I’m not entirely sure everything it knows, we know.  If that were the case we’d remember why it had just sent us into the next room.  Not to mention its tendency to keep us up, itself racing, on the nights we most need sleep.

I know daily exercise would make me a healthier person mentally and physically so I assume my brain does, as well.  Yet, when I get home from work, it comes up with a half dozen reasons to nap.  When I overrule it (not that I often overrule it when exercise is at stake) it fights back by telling my body how miserable I am and begging stop early.

It's like that kid in gym that suggested, “Hey, the coach isn’t looking, let’s walk.” If I’d have hung out with my brain in college I’m pretty sure I’d be degreeless, living alone in an efficiency apartment and pouring beer over my breakfast cereal.

My brain knows there’s a direct cause-and-effect relationship between me and sweets.  If I only have a little, things are cool.  But a small taste of sugar makes me want a lot of sugar and a lot of sugar makes me feel terrible, grumpy and tired…very, very tired.  I'd let it control eating but someday they’d be cutting a wall out to remove my bed-ridden mega-body and place it in a piano crate for burial.

My brain likes to remind me things could be better.  I have a job I enjoy (trust me, I’ve had plenty I didn’t and there’s a big difference) but my brain likes to remind me of how nice it’d be to sleep-in, have more free time or make the big bucks.  I have an amazing and beautiful wife but my brain occasionally points out the annoying little things she’s prone to do…rather, might do were she not perfect.  And my brain is the first to identify any situation that isn’t ideal; even if it’s nearly seamless, any shortcomings are immediately highlighted.  If my brain goes unchecked I’ll spend my twilight years alone, barking at kids to get off my lawn, writing angry letters to the editor about squirrels in my birdfeeder and yelling at Girl Scout Cookie salesmen for ignoring my cardboard and magic-marker ‘no-solicitors’ sign.

Brains are important, or so they’d have us believe.  With all the emphasis placed on using them, making them healthy and keeping them off drugs…though they might seem our nemesis…I’ll continue to work with mine, trying to make it stronger, trying to gain its cooperation.  But if I’m being honest, my brain is a bit spoiled.