Men's Group

Life is all about growth, IMHO, freeing yourself from fear, inhibition, negative energy. It's always a good idea to push the envelope in appropriate ways.

The results of limiting personal growth can lead to complications in life, and great sadness. This may not be the perfect illustration of this, but I will share this story.

I know a family that has been friends of my family since before I was born. The parents have a daughter who is 3 years younger than I am. They were always very over-indulgent with her. They couldn't conceive, so they adopted her and she was very spoiled, they pretty much let her call the shots. One area of life was food - at an early age, she became extremely fussy. She would only eat cheese pizza with the crust trimmed, hot dogs on white bread with ketchup, macaroni and cheese, scrambled eggs, spaghetti-o's, and pb and grape jelly on white bread crust trimmed. Literally. Absolutely no fruits or vegetables, nothing healthy, as an adult she made jokes about it but still eats that way. She has two kids, they ended up the same way - the younger one can't go on school trips and couldn't go to sixth grade camp because they couldn't accommodate the weird diet.

She is now dying of metastatic colon cancer. At the age of 44. While there certainly could be a genetic component, I believe that her diet must be a major contributing factor. A consequence of holding back and being afraid to try new things, in this case food? Could be.