Sacred Life Sunday on Monday: Tyranny of the Majority

Yesterday's Weight Watchers meeting was probably the most uncomfortable I've ever attended.

Being the day after a holiday, the leader continually yapped on and on about how "everyone" would probably experience some weight gain because of "all the barbecues and parties" from the day before. She just assumed that "everyone" would have the same exact experience.

I looked around and saw a bunch of overweight women, most of whom probably did not go to barbecues or parties and had still gained weight.

Probably because they were feeling left out of the parties and back yard frolic, as many overweight people are, but certainly didn't want to admit they gained weight because they spent the weekend in front of the TV with a pint of Haagen Daas. So they sat there in hard plastic chairs with set jaws and closed mouths.

Still, the leader went on and on and on and on. It's the first time I thought about just getting up and leaving.

This got me to thinking about how little room there is for individuality in any of these programs. It's the nature of "joining". We automatically become subject to the tyranny of the perceived majority. Aaaah, the ubiquitous "everyone". I think "everyone" is a neighbor of "they". You know, "they say"..... That "they".

The truth is that "everyone" was not at some kind of event. I was out and around quite a bit that day and saw very little evidence of family gatherings and didn't smell very many barbecues at all. There might have been a whiff of one while walking around the neighborhood.

One of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves is the freedom to experience our own reality, whatever it might be. I wish the Weight Watchers leader had been more sensitive to individual autonomy and individual experience.

If there's anything I've discovered through a lifetime of having an addictive personality and experiencing two types of recovery, both alcohol and food, it is that addicts are generally very individualistic. We think for ourselves and don't fall into many predictable demographic pidgeon holes. It's both our salvation and downfall.

I've also found that we develop our own routes to recovery through a kind of eclectic mix of programs and ideas, personal experience and observation. We "take the best and leave the rest" in the most classic sense of that.

One of the most important things we can do is let go of someone else's expectations about how our lives should be.


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