Getting Rid of Guilty Pleasures
We all have activities we honey or foods we require that we think of as "guilty pleasures", things that aren't good for us, or that we feel would embarrass united states of america if anyone else know most it, but that we enjoy anyway.
Mayhap you like reading "airport novels", or chick lit, or true confessions. Peradventure yous dear double-fudge chocolate chunk ice cream with chocolate sauce and chocolate sprinkles, or mucilaginous worms, or expensive imported truffles. Maybe you cry in cheesy romantic comedies, or obsess over 1960's B-movies, or scream like a little girl in slasher pics.
Whatsoever it is, your pleasure is tempered somewhat by guilt. Some guilty pleasures brand us feel guilty because they're so bad for usa — fattening foods, fourth dimension-wasting games, IQ-sucking sitcoms. Others aren't necessarily bad for u.s., but nosotros fear for the consequence on our reputations if word got out. They brand us look "low-grade" or "non-intellectual" or "unprofessional" or "young".
The guilt ultimately arises, though, from the pleasure itself. Our modern lodge, with it's "work piece of work work ethic" and securely-bred commitment to constant self-improvement — through dieting, through "extreme" sports, through self-help books, through a never-catastrophe stream of products and media that all promise a "meliorate yous!" — holds pleasure in rather low esteem. Information technology is seen, at all-time, as a reward, though a somewhat disreputable one, for the success of all that work work piece of work.
Only more often it's seen as a luxury, and a disposable one at that. The poor are held in antipathy for their continued willingness to ain DVD players, the rich for their decadence. Food, we are told, is solely for the nourishment of the torso; sexual activity, we are told, is solely for the reproduction of the species. Pleasure for pleasure's sake is to be avoided, and those who seek it are to be shunned.
Hence the guilty pleasure — the matter we practice just because it makes us experience good. It's shameful to seek later the "empty calories" of the sugary snack, fluffy novel, or kittenish hobby. It's a betrayal of the central principles our society is built on.
It'due south fourth dimension to strike the phrase "guilty pleasure" from your vocabulary.
The thought that those things that distract the states from the "real" work of living should exist held in contempt is, of form, good for those who profit most from our work, but it's no good for the remainder of us. Work is proficient, of course — things need to get done — but piece of work without pleasure is for automatons, not human beings. Indeed, information technology is the "guilty pleasures" nosotros should feel least guilty near, because they re the things in which nosotros are more than fully our own people.
Behind the concept of the guilty pleasure is a demand for conformity. Don't eat that, watch that, read that, do that, be that. It is an insistence that there are certain things we're supposed to eat, sentinel, read, do, be, if we are to be taken seriously equally adults. It is an insistence, in fact, on existence "normal" — or even worse, "average".
I defy that.
I hear you thinking, "Merely certainly, if something's unhealthy for you, and y'all do information technology anyway, you should feel guilty near it — information technology's the merely way you're gong to finish!" And certain, if your diet consists solely of guilty pleasures, if your reading is entirely guilty pleasures, if your life is consumed by the quest for always-more guilty pleasures, that'due south a problem. If your guilt stems from your concern over a lack of willpower or discipline that is causing yous real harm, y'all absolutely should be dealing with that. It's probably not the guilty pleasure that'south to blame, though — you need to piece of work out some balance in your life as a whole.
But more than often, our guilty pleasures are an exception, a small part of a life that'south otherwise already well-balanced. Which is to say, you can probably afford to indulge in a guilty pleasance or two without any guilt. If it gives you pleasure and isn't likely to impale y'all, by all means, dig in!
Same thing with the rest of the guilty pleasures. If your guilt stems from the fear of what other people would call back if they knew, and you're no longer in middle school, y'all need to bargain with your lack of cocky-confidence, not your appreciation of Tiptop twoscore music.
Every bit with so much else, information technology boils downwards to a question of residue. If your life is chugging forth just fine, cheers, and you just happen to have an inordinate fondness for Troll dolls, I say know yourself out. On the other paw, if your eating habits or amusement preferences leave you unprepared to deal with your life — or if they're the only consolation in your life — you demand to give some serious idea to discovering more nourishing pleasures — or building a more than nourishing life.
Source: https://www.lifehack.org/articles/featured/getting-rid-of-guilty-pleasures.html
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