The trouble with truth is it always seems to find its way into our lives. No matter how much we try to avoid it, that sneaky little bastard always seems to show up, especially when most uninvited! Deep down inside, people typically know what the truth is, but they are afraid to face it so it seems much easier to just pretend. And fortunately, technology and our modernized world make it easier and easier, all the time, to pretend your way through life.

Let’s start with social media:

You have, let’s say, 700 “friends” on FaceBook. That is awesome. You are really well liked. You have a captive audience you can access 24 hours per day. Feeling lonely? Nonsense! You have hundreds of “friends” to keep you company via your phone.

Want to see how exotic and exciting everyone else’s lives are? Scan profile pages and you can live vicariously through one make-believe life after another. Vacations, honor-rolls, trophies abound! Life is glorious!

Or maybe you are feeling feisty? Hop online, make a political statement and engage in pointless quarrels all day long! Change nobody’s opinion, degrade others you call your “friends”, have no actual facts to back up your argument but hey, you are socially interacting, right?

Instagram, FaceBook, Twitter, SnapChat…boom! Instant “friends” and human interaction.

The Truth:

Nobody has 700 friends! People you went to high school with 20+ years ago, whom you barely knew then, sure as hell aren’t your friends now. True friends can usually be counted on one hand and authentic human interaction doesn’t happen on your phone. Having respectful, constructive political dissent happens face to face and requires presentation of facts, not emotions. People struggle in life, just as much as you do but they don’t share it on social media. If you think you are getting authentic, healthy human interaction online, think again. As humans, we require personal interaction with other humans if we want to live long, healthy lives. Stop pretending you are being social by using social media. A lack of true interaction with other people will take years off of your life!

How about the way you eat:

Wake up and pour your kids a bowl of pesticide-ridden grains, coated with sugar and top it off with milk laden with hormones and antibiotics and call it breakfast! Skip breakfast all together yourself because you are much too “busy” to eat and besides, you don’t need food to survive.

Pack a lunch for your kids with chips, toxic dyed water, and sugar (and pretend it’s juice), or better yet, give them hot lunch consisting of ground-up pig and beef scraps (also known as hot dogs). You again can skip lunch because eating isn’t necessary for a human body as busy as yours.

When it comes to dinner, pull something out of the freezer that has a picture on the package that resembles real food. Or run through a take-out restaurant because you have more important things to do than cook! Sports practice, the latest episode of The Bachelor and your “friends” on FaceBook are highly important!

The Truth:

You know for a fact that healthy food doesn’t come out of a box. You aren’t too busy to cook, you just choose not to. And unfortunately, that darn truth, in the form of obesity or disease is going to show up sooner or later. The human body cannot thrive without REAL FOOD no matter how much you try to pretend it can.

But thanks to the likes of pharmaceuticals and big-business medicine (of which you complain of the high costs), you can continue to pretend that you’re not taking years off of your life. Take statins to quiet that pesky body of yours. After-all, producing high cholesterol to defend itself against the toxic foods you are eating really puts a damper on your fantasy life of health.

What about exercising:

Moving your body is much too much trouble after a long day of work. Being tired is a chronic state for you so there is no way you are going to wake up a bit earlier or make time in the evening to get fresh air and go for a walk. Huh!

Or maybe you’re on the other end of the spectrum and you have to punish your body with exercise for it to be effective. After all, you are stronger and faster than any other guy or gal at your “high-intensity” fitness class so you are an athlete! If you don’t feel pain, you will get no gain.

The Truth:

You are tired because you aren’t moving. The human body wasn’t made to be stationary 18 hours out of the day. A lack of strong connective tissue, the inability to walk up a flight of stairs without gassing out and losing mobility will result in a pretty miserable existence as you age. It is really unfortunate to have lived your best years in your 20’s and when you hit 70 and are stuck on medications, chronically ill, having replacement surgeries and living in an assisted care facility, you will wish you didn’t pretend your health away.

Exercise for longevity shouldn’t beat the crap out of you. If you want to live a long, healthy life, abusing your joints and calling yourself an athlete for an ego stroke is going to come back to haunt you.

Stop Pretending!

Stop eating junk and packaged food and pretending it isn’t killing you.

Stop feeding your kids sugar, dyes and chemicals and pretending you aren’t damaging their health.

Stop pretending you’re too busy. You’re not.

Stop spending hours upon on social media and pretending to engage. Go out and connect with the world.

Stop pretending you are living when you are just existing.

Stop wearing yoga pants all day and pretending you just came from the gym! (ha…had to throw this one in there to see if you are still listening;)

You may choose to live a pretend life but your body doesn’t lie. It will only allow you to live in your make-believe world until it doesn’t. And when it doesn’t, you are going to wish you accepted the truth when you had the chance.

“Quam bene vivas refert, non quam diu”