lifestyle

Boring. Boundaries. Balance.

~ Tael ~ Leave a comment

While catching up with friends during a very extended birthday celebration week and commenting on the year’s impending end, I reflected on how chill this year has been for me.

And how, I couldn’t remember the last time I was able to say that. That my year was not stressful. Lacking in chaos. No severe disruptions. Damn near breezy. I mentioned this to my cousin at Christmas and he immediately (and impressively) confirmed what I’d done differently this year: Boundaries. The thing my therapist had kept coming back to for forever before she graduated me some time ago. This year, I veered away from any signs of toxicity. If it didn’t bring me peace, joy, or some kind of fulfillment, it didn’t get my attention. If it was fuzzy, lacked clarity, or made me question myself, I walked away. If it made me feel icky or negatively influenced, I fell back.

Even if it was family, friends, or familiar.

They say the healthiest actions are the most boring ones. Routine exercise and eating well. Getting proper sleep. Drinking water. Not chasing immediate gratification in drugs or substances or adrenaline or attention. Not very exciting elements. And yet, my year was not dull.

I showed up for friends who needed me. I went to PoGo Fest in Jersey City. I pushed myself to progress in my salsa journey, going to socials and asking strangers and teachers to dance when I was terrified at my lack of skill. Building a hobby out of nowhere, I made connections in the new community I’d found, and as a result, I was more active and more social. With more movement, my body began to show me the importance of rest and how I needed to prioritize it more, and not just go-go-go until I buckled under fatigue. I finally spent more weekends guiltlessly doing absolutely nothing and it felt amazing and refreshing and not boring at all. I embraced the concept of rest as a necessity and not a waste of time that could be better spent. And after a day or two of nothing but loafing, I was always ready to unpause and get back out there.

I represented at my sister’s graduation when my mom was absent, cheering with pride when she crossed the stage to take her diploma. I planned a random family trip to Barbados since her own graduation trip got cancelled, her first out-of-the-country experience. For my birthday, I decided to get a second helix piercing to make the first one I got during Covid a set. I chose “mutiny” against long-time family holiday traditions, choosing to stand up for changes I found enjoyable, rather than swallowing my own desires for the decades-old practices my family was glued to. I broke tradition, but maybe started new ones. I maxed out my Roth IRA for the year. I finally decided that, whether I found a flight deal or not, it was time to book my dream trip for next year, and have delighted in researching my itinerary.

I had so many late nights, planned and impromptu, filled with dance, joy, popcorn and ramen. I wandered the East Village with a friend one night and ended up in a restaurant where we were invited to be added to their wall of customer polaroids. I went to my first SOUP PARTY in Brooklyn where you sample homemade soup varieties. I HALLOWEENED. I built a consistent morning routine of tea and gentle stretching to start the day. My message and social media response time grew even worse because I was immersed in situations that appealed to me, more attractive than idle scrolling to pass time, which equaled more presence.

I’ve long since realized that much of the chaos I’ve encountered in life has been other people bringing it to me. But this year, I didn’t need to keep anyone entertained, lest they grow bored with stability. I didn’t need to manage anyone’s unhealthy habits or anxiety or walk on any eggshells from their stress. I marveled in silent apartment time, peaceful walks, reciprocal conversations, sunsets falling behind water towers of urban landscapes and discovering more Lofi and Chillhop. And I feel nothing but gratefulness for this year. Grateful that I’ve made it this far in life and the fact that I’ve always been able to appreciate tiny, joyful things. And realizing, I just frequently found myself in the company of others who couldn’t.

If I have any “resolution” at all as this New Year approaches, it would be to stay on this path of “boring”. Of staying active and loving sunlight and reading more. Of healthy calm, doing what feels best for me and not vying for validation outside of myself. Of minding my New York business and staying out of others’ chaos, while staying grounded in my inner-peace party. That La-La land in my head. Because mentally, I made my own inner space a happy place to be. And healthy mind/body/spirit has always been the goal.

Wishing you your best boring New Year too. 🙂 Stay ninja.

~Tael

Watching Porn Daily: Unhealthy or Nah?

~ Tael ~ 1 Comment

Hisashiburi! Ya’ll know I love a healthy, intellectual, inherently controversial discussion that most would commonly avoid initiating out of fear of judgment. But since I prefer boundary-tolerant boldness, I found myself commencing a study (haha, it was just an Instagram poll) to try and glean what the masses (of my personal, shimmering oblong of associates) equated with “normalcy” regarding pornographic consumption. And yes, I still prefer to use real, unedited words like “porn” and “sex” because we’re adults and I find the new standard of censoring dictionary-approved terms that social media now deems too harsh, demeaning, and, quite frankly, soft.

I never thought I’d become one of those “My therapist said” people, but honestly, that woman was smart, and I learned a lot from her before she “graduated” me from her sessions this past summer. One of the primary lessons being that things we might have grown up with or observed everyone around us doing, that we perceive as “normal”, may simply be accepted because the majority is participating, but not necessarily healthy. We have tons of tangible examples in America, as statistically our majority is overweight and lacking exercise, with major addictions to fast/processed food, alcohol and substances, and the leading cause of death is heart disease. Common? Yes. Healthy? Ruh roh.

As the “study” responses started rolling in, the women were united in their responses that nah, daily consumption ain’t it, while the male responses were much more…forgiving. My stance was already solidified with my female brethren before I even started the poll. Yes, I believe daily smut consumption is unhealthy. Why? Because at one point I did it.

Let’s set the stage.

As a millennial, online porn was birthed in our era. Before that, you had to be 18+ to go past the rope into the Adult section of the DVD store, or the “LIVE GIRLS” peep show joints that littered Times Square once upon a time (any Millennials ever had a chance to go IN one of those before they all got swept away?). So the only access us young souls had (which we probably shouldn’t have had) was coming across someone’s poorly hidden Playboy magazine stash, or the softcore stuff on TV that, once the adults in the house were sleeping (or maybe they just left you while they went out for the night) you whipped out the aluminum foil for and messed with the rabbit-ear antenna trying to get a clear-enough picture of naked bodies, meanwhile you’re getting moist down there sitting next to your best friend and not at all understanding the feelings you’re feeling because you don’t even really know what sex is yet, just that it’s naughty and hidden from you and your body has already inappropriately been initiated into the sexual world by curious relatives. Or you somehow found a way to watch Showgirls on someone’s TV in an HBO household.

But then the Internet rolls around and you learn that along with your illegal music file-sharing, you could also add a 3-hour download on your dial-up modem connection of a 25-second clip of hot lesbian action that you hope completes with time for you to view, process, and delete the evidence before your parents get home.

Then you get your very own laptop to take to college, and while the Internet connection in your dorm is OODLES better and faster, platforms like Napster and Limewire have come under heavy fire in the news and music companies are threatening to come and bust in on you downloading your fast porn, and I can’t be the student that gets caught, shamed, sued and expelled, becoming the disappointment of my very Christian family, because my campus network can certainly track what I’m downloading, right?

So imagine, when you graduate and you’re finally out on your own for real for real, and you no longer have to worry about school networks or parents walking into your room (or you know, the family living room if that’s where your computer was), you can finally dive into all that illicit hentai and debauchery and explore the underworld those Girls Gone Wild commercials and pop-up ads taunted at us, always behind a paywall, or a firewall, or a purple-velvet curtained wall…

All the freedom.

Now you’re over 18, so it’s not just about household internet speeds progressing and private computers; you now have CREDIT CARDS where the bill doesn’t go to your parents. You can now go into that roped-off Adult DVD section with the Middle-Eastern arms-crossed man watching you as you peruse the scandalous material even though you’re of age now, checking the “preview” screenshots on the insert to see if it’s worth parting with your cash for. Pre-redtube.com days (I used redtube.com in a sentence in an IG message with one of my friends, not realizing that it would actually link the damn site there and I screamed at him NOO DON’T CLICK IT!!! WordPress, please don’t link this.) But see, Redtube and Xvideos and the others effectively destroyed the last barricade to access cheap, easy, sexual content without fear of an accompanying Trojan Horse virus.

You now have unlimited access to the most primally stimulating, pleasurable content as an adult, with nothing standing in your way.

And so…you indulge. You watch. You ready your vibrator. You play the voyeur, acting along with the scene. You learn new things you didn’t know turned you on that you would never admit to others, new positions that seem cool to try, new situations to add to your fantasy-bank. Being able to immediately pull up gratifying carnal titillation at the slightest knock of boredom is thrilling. You save favorite videos to your library and surprise yourself at the genres that turn you on.

But that euphoria doesn’t last forever. When it’s no longer new and fresh and it starts taking longer to come because you’re overstimulating your sensitive bits. When you realize it’s been 25 minutes of tedious scrolling to find new material, because not every video is a banger (yes, all the punz). But there’s always another page, another page, another chance to strike orgasmic gold. Maybe. Could be right around the corner on page 9. Or 12. Or 23. And then when you finally finish it’s been an hour-and-a-half, and all you’ve done is stare at a screen and play with yourself.

Because it’s not real sex. But it sure does make you want to have some. Which is the whole point of pornography. It’s to turn you on. It’s to get you aroused for…what…? Well, for me, it’s freaking intercourse, a main course (also wordplay) that was usually missing. Otherwise I would have been indulging in that and not porn.

I can’t remember exactly how long the daily porn-viewing phase went on for. Maybe a few months? Maybe longer? But cracks started to form. Cracks in the pleasure facade that drained the appeal. Behind-the-scenes clips of women admitting how sore and raw they were from the screen time. Men who ain’t lasting that long without some kind of pharmaceutical assistance. Awful, over-the-top acting with cringe voices and ridiculous facial expressions and glaring phoniness that grated on my authenticity and made it hard to get off to. The 80%-of-the-time money shot of the guy finishing on the woman’s face because yay this is what sex is (and that shit burns eyes). The darker themes you uncover…So much glamorized incest…(Wasn’t the whole “fucking my stepsister on the washing machine” genre recently trending? Kind of sick.)

The biggest crack I could see through, was how this could lead to an addiction if one stayed on that path. How, little by little, you needed more to stimulate you. Watching basic sex stopped cutting it. You sought out variety. Different positions. More taboo scenarios. New kinks to spice up the viewing. Something different, something different, things socially unacceptable, forbidden shit I’d never actually do; this situation is morally wrong, but it doesn’t count because it’s not real so I can enjoy it guilt-free, right? As I condition my senses to find grossly unethical scenarios arousing in secret until cognitive dissonance is born.

I could see how someone could become an isolated hobbit, furiously thrusting into a fleshlight with the blinds drawn in the shadows. Just because it was there and accessible. Easy for the undisciplined. The distance to achieve the same (or greater) high would always continue to extend (giggity) and require…more. And we all know what that sounds like. Like drugs. As you stared at choreographed and controlled pleasure, trying to hold out and orgasm at the optimal point in the clip. Relying on the content to take you to a new level of arousal. And my creative ego would be damned if it was going to let some commodified lust fuel override and control my own sexual imagination and expression.

That just didn’t feel like “freedom” to me anymore.

Porn is controlled and rehearsed. But the passionate, spontaneous dance between two lovers’ bodies in the real world? Mmm mmm… Unless the dance is above my skill level, I prefer to do it, not watch it.

So I tapered off and willed myself to stop. When I was unentertained, rather than just reaching for the laptop and pulling up some XXX for easy pleasure, I just…found something else to do. Or pleasured myself without porn. I went back to using my own imagination for masturbation resources because what was I gonna do when it was time to passion dance with a real person, recall PORNO scenes? Or, follow my own instincts of what feels good, and improvise a sultry wanton tango I wasn’t expecting in the moment, working off my partner’s energy. Because watching the explicit scenes on-screen is always tantalizing, but never comes close to my body reacting from the low, sensual tone of a man’s voice drifting softly into my ears or his warm, strong hands on my body. What turns me on most, I didn’t learn from watching porn scenarios. I learned from feeling lips on my skin, weight sinking deliciously into me, tongue play, and shivers from stroked pleasure points.

The most frustrating part about porn would always remain that it left me wanting the real deal. Wishing someone was actually there to “finish the job” and quench the blazing desire ignited by it. Yeah, you douse it yourself, but it’s almost like I was stoking fire after fire just to do it.

My most euphoric points, my highest highs, the prurient experiences I replayed over and over again that made me flush with warmth reliving them, never came from porn-generated desire. They either came from my own mind, or a real-life encounter. Life introduced them to me.

What’s real will always draw me. I’ll always choose the quality of soul-feeding authentic stimulation over everyday cheap thrills. Daily porn consumption didn’t enhance my sexual life in any way. It just made me horny and kinda threatened my natural sexual dance instinct with unnatural moves. It became pointless to arouse myself every day artificially and then get no sex.

Now, I can’t remember the last time I pulled up a porn site. Might be years. I haven’t banished it to the land of evil, but it’s just whatever to me; my mind doesn’t seek it out. Instead, my mind seeks out organic stimulation and excitement. But it also reminds me that it has no problem generating its own eroticism. Like that one time I needed to quickly change out of some uncomfortable underwear and meet my family downstairs, so, keeping my bubble jacket on I stripped from the waist down and felt the cool air tease my delicate lower lips, while my upper body remained wrapped up like an Eskimo. And in that moment I imagined how hot it would be if a man bent me over just like that to slide into me from behind for a quickie. All it took was an instant for an authentic primal instinct. Our minds can be something if you nourish them properly.

I’ve also been a reader of Sandra Brown novels since like 2nd grade. IYKYK.

~Tael

Selfish or Self-Fulfilling?

~ Tael ~ Leave a comment

There’s a lot of this going around on the Internet right now (especially if you follow therapy pages like I do). All the over-givers who are sick of getting “taken advantage of” are entering their “selfish eras” and “doing me” and whatnot. And don’t take my quotation marks for sarcasm; I’m in the same boat. Someone who’s grown exhausted with choosing to over-give (because no one’s forcing us; it is our choice, we just want acknowledgement and reciprocity for it). But seeing my peers say we’re being “selfish” now, I’m realizing we’ve grossly misinterpreted what the word selfish actually means. Because all the “selfish” stuff we’re doing by focusing on ourselves now and taking care of our own wants is really the shit we should have been doing all along.

Let’s look at the dictionary definition of the word selfish: lacking consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one’s own personal profit or pleasure.

That’s not what taking care of yourself is. Taking care of yourself is something we’re supposed to do. We’re not entering our selfish eras devouring fresh cheeseburgers while simultaneously staring down a homeless man with no remorse. We’re not scheming to get ahead at the expense of someone else’s suffering. We’re not shamelessly flaunting our fancy new expensive purchases in front of a friend who’s struggling financially to make ends meet. We’re not inconveniencing others. We’re simply doing more of what brings us joy and alignment in our own lives and trusting our fellow adults to take responsibility for themselves in non-life-threatening situations. You know…like healthy human beings?

We’re eating better, working out more, and focusing on more self-care to improve our mental well-being, not stealing candy from children or dipping into the collection box at church.

But somewhere along the way, society got introduced the notion that if you are always looking out for everyone else, it will come back to you.

Noble, yes, but also a load of bullshit.

Sure, there’s Karma, and sure, being kind to others does benefit you, but stretching yourself thin and exhausting yourself to your own detriment to do it became the gold standard because we all knew a grandma or auntie that always looked out for everyone and was always giving, and do we remember how they lived? Usually poor, on government assistance, and didn’t go out much. Harsh, but a dose of truthful reality. We looked out for them, but still, were their lives thriving? See, the giving notion got twisted to the point where it became ideal and applauded to always give to others even at the expense of yourself. Like, if I’m walking the streets barefoot and I see a guy in a wheelchair, I should give up one of my legs type deal. Sounds a little ridiculous, no? But then, where is the limit?

The truth is, this world is full of leeches who will seek out folks with this over-giving mentality and then suck.you.dry. This mentality also blurs the line of personal responsibility. At some point, as we grow from children to adults, we learn that we must take responsibility for our own lives, actions, and their consequences. There’s a fine line between being “helpful” and enabling someone, which many people forget, and that causes a whole new slew of problems in that by your eagerness to be helpful, you actually take away the learning experience that folks need to better themselves on their own, but since someone else is always willing to do the work for them, they no longer try.

I got called selfish a LOT growing up, especially because I was an only child until I was 15 (and most only children are called selfish by default). One of my earliest standout memories of being slapped with the selfish sticker was when I was about 7 or so, and my two cousins and I were each allowed to pick out one snack from the supermarket. I chose one of those really cute applesauce 6-packs, probably a Blues-Clues variation, or some sort of limited-time variety flavor. Now, I had plans for this snack. I was ready to ration out my portions for the next few days, because that was the sort of precocious child I was. One during a reading session, one hiding under the kitchen table, one on a car ride…I had plans for this snack. But what ended up happening was my 2 cousins snarfed their stuff down in hours, then came to me with their hands out for mine. And I was made to give it to them.

I was livid at the unfairness of it. Here I am, displaying advanced life skills that most adults struggle with like delayed gratification, restraint, and frugality, and I was just expected to hand over portions of the snack I was treasuring, just because my cousins wanted it. I hadn’t coveted theirs. I hadn’t asked for any of theirs. I hadn’t partook in theirs. But I was still berated by my family and called selfish because I didn’t want to hand it over. Why were my cousins not the selfish, greedy, gluttonous ones? Why did it not matter that I was losing out here, getting an unfair portion of the snack I fairly acquired? Why was I not praised for my discipline?

Now, I’m sure my family was only trying to teach me a lesson in being giving, no matter what the circumstances, and I’m sure most parents back then wanted to raise altruistic little Gandhis, but the result today may be a bunch of exhausted, codependent people-pleasers who’ve learned that the appearance of “nice” to others is more important than being kind to ourselves.

There were MANY other instances I was called selfish growing up, and of course I WAS at times, I WAS A CHILD. Children by nature are selfish, and that’s why adults who are selfish are seen as more childish because they haven’t matured out of the “everything revolves around me” phase. But I was an intelligent child; I didn’t lack consideration for others, and I was strongly empathetic. I don’t think I at all deserved it as the personality trait my family accused me of having. I was a big proponent of fairness. Of equality. Of everyone getting what they wanted, if they could. But we were taught that ONLY utter sacrifice of what you want is true giving, and that compromise in the fairness of all parties doesn’t count.

If you are maintaining a gym routine, weekly self-care days, improving on a hobby that brings you joy, taking a class or learning a new skill, that’s not selfish, and we need to stop acting like it is. You are not in your selfish era because you’re taking the reigns of your happiness and not expecting anyone else to do it for you. You’re living your life and investing in the most important person in it; the star of the show. The fact that we collectively see this as somehow selfish and there’s a guilt associated with it speaks volumes to society’s expectations and why so many folks can’t take care of themselves and are always expecting someone else to help them. Unless you are a parent or caretaker, you are not responsible for anyone else’s life. We are the ones in our lives who are in the easiest position to give ourselves what we want because we know what makes us happiest.

A narcissist ex once told me, “A relationship should be two people trying their best to make the other person as happy as possible.”

Awww so sweet–WRONG. First of all, sounds exactly like something a Narc would say; they want you in their pocket doing anything you can to make sure they stay happy and all their needs are met, while simultaneously throwing temper tantrums in response to your requests and trampling the boundaries you try to stand firmly on.

But it’s also unsustainable. There are just some things that another person is not capable of doing for you, that would make you happier than if you did it for yourself.

Another popular insight going around is that we shouldn’t be looking to other people to make us happy. Your source of true happiness must come from within, and not from an outside source. You have to be your own sun.

And being your own sun isn’t selfish. Tending your own garden isn’t selfish. Thinking of your own happiness, in conjunction with those around you is not selfish. The notion that we need to forsake our own needs to appear giving is a foolish one that needs to be retired, along with the idea that we even need to prove how giving we are in the first place, as if we earn some sort of floating badge attached to our human avatars that others can see, confirm, and validate us with. The fact that we actually think that by supporting ourselves in the same manner that we support everyone else is us entering our sElFiSh ErA is unhealthy, damaging, incorrect, and barf-worthy. This is not, and has never been a “Fuck everyone else’s feelings, I’m gonna do me” movement. It’s a “My needs matter just as much as everyone else’s, and I don’t need to hide them to appear ‘good'” shift.

Because what if, by considering your own needs as equally as you considered others’, it actually made things…EVEN.

Balanced?

Fair.

~Tael

Reclaiming Fried Chicken

~ Tael ~ Leave a comment

A month or so ago, as I walked up the stairs to my apartment, I smelled the warm, homey aroma of that night’s dinner coming from my downstairs neighbors’ door. The smell of the Spanish food they cook up regularly tempts my nostrils; I almost wish they would offer up their leftovers because I would gladly take them (plus the grandma lives there, so you know it’s banging). But that particular night, my perceptive nostrils recognized the unmistakably comforting scent of homemade fried chicken, and sent a signal to my brain that made me realize I desperately missed it.

So the next day I went the grocery store and grabbed some vegetable oil and flour, whipped up a batch, and sunk my teeth into the blissful seasoned crunch that soothed my craving. And as I went to pour the leftover grease into a Chinese takeout container, I paused. I remembered when a container of used grease by my stove was as regular as the iodized table salt canister. But I no longer made fried chicken often, so what was I going to use the rest of this grease for if I saved it? Well…it was here now. Why not fry some pork chops next?

While fried chicken was one of the first things I was taught to cook on my own, there’s a few reasons why I stopped eating it regularly since my college years. The biggest one, even more so than health, is that I come from a family of Black aunties whose cooking rarely fails. When you are raised on authentic Black Auntie fried chicken, it’s hard to settle for REGULAR fried chicken. And then of course, the basement-after-church-service fried chicken. And then there was my Grandma, the head fried-chicken-making OG. Whenever we’d make the trip down from New York to Baltimore, no matter what time we arrived, even if it was 2am and she’d already gone to bed, there was always a bowl of fried chicken waiting for us on the kitchen table. That just-as-good-possibly-better-even-when-it’s-cold fried chicken. Cause anyone can be lazy enough to eat some cold fried chicken from a fast food restaurant, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be good. My cousin and I would sometimes sit in the backyard on a discarded dresser, escaping the sweltering, air conditionless kitchen, snacking on Grandma’s fried chicken and throwing the bones over the fence to the neighbor’s dog.

So since I grew up on the best fried chicken, I learned not to seek it out anywhere else much because it was never the same caliber. I mean, Popeyes can hold its own in terms of fast food fried chicken when you forgot to make dinner or you’re coming in from a drunken night and need a meal that consistently delivers some flavor. Then there’s what I call the “hood chicken spots”, those dingy little joints in urban areas with the cheap specials and a million items on the menu and it looks like some shit could go down at any moment (think Crown or Kennedy Fried Chicken); they actually tend to be reliable to quench a hankering, especially after a grueling church service gone on for too long. Hip-Hop Chicken and Fish chains in Baltimore gets an honorable mention as the top store-bought fried chicken I’ve ever had. But I even avoid soul food restaurants because as many as I’ve been to, their fried chicken has never been as good as Grandma’s or my aunties. Or their mac n cheese (once again, my aunties slay in this department). Most of the time, I’d just hold out and wait for the best.

But now, Grandma is gone. And I don’t see my aunts as much, and they don’t fry up chicken as much, and ever since I started eating healthier almost 9 years ago, I cut out fried and fast foods heavily. But that random, home-cooked fried chicken craving and my not-as-good-as-Grandma’s-but-still-delicious results felt soothing.

So I kept the grease. And I made pork chops a couple of nights later. And fried up some fish. And then a few weeks later, I bought some MORE vegetable oil. And I made some MORE fried chicken and fish. And I’m not worried about it because I have habits now. My food choices are superbly different now than they were before I started eating better. My body generally craves the home-cooked option before the fast food one, the baked option before the fried one, the whole food option before the processed one. The 3-ingredient butter over the 18-unpronounceable-man-made additives “spread”. Making some homemade fried chicken once or twice a month is not going to derail my wellness when I’ve built up 9 years of discipline with consistent workout routines and choosing real food over the quick option.

And the memories attached make it good for my soul. 🙂

~Tael

What Makes Healthy Attractive

~ Tael ~ Leave a comment

Most women I know swipe left on the guy in the dating app with the shirtless bathroom-mirror selfie. Even though, 99% of the time, the guy doing it IS ripped so shouldn’t it be impressive?

Thing is, we swipe left on those guys because of what posting a shirtless bathroom-mirror selfie tends to say about personality. For men (I admit there’s a shameless double-standard when it comes to women). Look at my buff body, doesn’t this entice you? I don’t know proper lighting, that’s why there’s massive screen glare and mad shadows behind me. I never leave the house so I couldn’t get a shot at the beach where I’d naturally be shirtless, but I NEED to show you what I’m working with here to up my desirability points.

He may be showing he’s fit and healthy, but it’s giving desperate. Basic. Lowbrow.

We’re more likely to swipe right on the guy in the snug-fitting shirt that hugs his guns well. It’s not IN-YOUR-FACE, but gives an underlying confidence (I don’t need to flaunt a very obvious, conventionally attractive asset to seal the deal) as well as allowing the myriad of positive traits within the fitness tree to shine as well.

Everyone loves a body in shape, mostly because of the very obvious, visually-appealing, #1 reason that’s always focused on: it’s nice to look at. It’s sexy. It’s a plus to date someone who works out. #Fitspo is all over the Internet under the guise of health consciousness, beautiful athletic bodies at the forefront. But the non-physical, positive aspects tied into it don’t get the same shine. Taking care of your body IS one of the top pillars of health. And healthy people tend to be attractive people. For a LOT more than just looking good.

Discipline. Every adult KNOWS that routinely carving out time to put your body through physically taxing actions for the sole purpose of building strength and stamina is WORK. It’s not really considered fun. And it’s tiring. Especially while balancing work, kids, adulting. We’d rather be chilling on our couch. Controller in hand. Nomming on cookies. Sleeping. Mentally slothing out on social media. All those things that are way less work and much more appealing than getting our ass to the gym. It’s EFFORT. But at the end of the day, it’s mind over matter. I literally tell my friends I have to “catapult myself to the gym now” because I am mentally grabbing myself by the britches and slinging myself out my door before I come up with any more excuses not to (rain, sub-zero temps, and still-sore-from-last-workout are the big ones). Because often you DON’T really want to do it, but you do because you know it’s GREAT for you. Which is why it requires…

Motivation. Hella motivation. Hella self-motivation. Because while you can lean on others for encouragement and to keep you accountable, nobody can go out and get this shit done but yourself. And that’s attractive. Consistently incorporating exercise into your life for the sole purpose of improving your health and physical prowess is determination. It means you understand the concept of delayed gratification and are willing to invest in yourself for your own betterment in the long run. Motivated people, especially self-motivated people, get shit done. And it’s because they can give themselves their OWN push and aren’t afraid to face something challenging by themselves. And that motivation to push themselves comes from…

Self-love. You have to respect a person working to be the best version of themselves because they VALUE themselves. Their health and mobility is important, and a strong part of what keeps a human youthful, vibrant, and energetic through what you hope to be a long, happy life with as little medical intervention as possible. They’re empowered through a commitment to themselves, and confident. And we all know confidence is sexy. Those who love themselves take care of themselves, because they want a strong mind and body. And folks are always admired for their…

Strength. I have older women in my life with dancer’s bodies. Personal training and running marathons in their 60s. A retired grandma who continued to volunteer part-time within the education system in her 70s just to keep her mind active. Healthy mind/body/spirit is a THING, ya’ll. Another grandma was sturdy af up until her 80s. Never needed a cane, never had a hip replacement. Stayed wearing her jazzy outfits and perfume when she went out, and you couldn’t pull the wool over her eyes, even in her old age. Hell, she didn’t even exercise. Imagine how much more formidable she could have been if she had. I look up to all of them. Strength and determination are captivating. A strong body and mind are coveted. You know how they say you’re the average of your five closest friends? My four closest friends ALL make a point to incorporate exercise into our lifestyles (Hey, I’m five!). And we never once even tried to push it on each other; it just happened organically that way. Positive influence rubs off, as does negative. I see videos on social media now of ladies in their 80s deadlifting at the gym. I hope that’ll be me.

I speak from the female perspective, but it goes both ways. A man sees a woman who tends to her health as positive and attractive. She takes pride in her appearance. She’s motivated to keep herself healthy. A strong, determined partner to rear children. A smart teammate who makes healthy decisions that will benefit the family.

Good health will always look attractive because it symbolizes so much in a world where the opposite is the norm. It makes you look better, feel better, perform better. It instills the qualities of motivation, determination, discipline, strength. THOSE are the attractive qualities you can’t see right away, but are buried under the superficial surface of “fit”. A long-term commitment to one of the most important things in EVERYONE’s life is the body we live in for the time we’re here. And the commitment to care for it is not limited to gymgoers. Dancers. Runners. Rock-climbers. Those who get a walk in every morning. Cyclists. Acrobats. Sports. There’s so many ways to actively take care of your body, just by putting in a few hours out of the 168 ones we go through every week. It’ll never NOT be worth it.

Taking care of yourself is appealing. Self-esteem is enticing. Striving to continually improve oneself is engaging. Water in your system and sunlight on your face and nourishment to your soul…

Good health is attractive.

Posting shirtless bathroom-mirror selfies on a dating app is not.

~Tael

(This is not a post on dating lol. Be your best self.)