Memorial Day is just around the corner and you know what that means - expectations galore! Everyone from bosses to spouses to children and grandchildren will be looking to you to measure up. Speaking of measuring, there's one more requirement for summer fear; er, fun. You, of course, are your worst judge, let alone enemy, when it comes to fitting into a swimsuit. So yes, you need to start a diet; but the diet I'd suggest is "No".
I call your diet 'The Freedom Diet' because, contrary to humankind's evolutionary-survival-training which not only encourages but rewards conformity, you are not truly free until/unless you can say "no" when you could perhaps too easily/meekly say "yes". Like any successful diet, you should start now and how about small portions/rejections.
What's most important are the three convincements; as Quaker Guy commits them to your heart: First, as an adopted child of God, you are privy to the freedom of a son/daughter of God; Second, you are asked(by God's only begotten)to love yourself before you can love another ('Love others as yourself'); Third, saying "No" to another, allows you to say "Yes" to yourself and you matter also.
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From experience I can assure you that as you gain more time (and less stress) from having to meet all the expectations of (and on) you by others, you will start thinking that saying (and meaning) "no" is the best thing since sliced bread. A warning: it's at this point that you need to ask yourself if you want to be a human being or a human bean. In other words, be careful that something good and helpful doesn't become something anorexic and helplessly selfish.
