what is your prison?

i stopped eating chocolate five years ago this past week. let's suffice it say i had been eating a lot of it, and i decided i should stop. i told my roommate kehau and she took one look at me and said, 'you won't last a week.' so every year when the last week of january rolls around, i take stock and then just keep going. chocolate lost its appeal to me years ago.

well, over the last couple months, i have been reflecting on how sometimes the rules i make for myself, for whatever reason, prevent me from fully engaging with people. i don't like that. so this year, when my no-chocolate anniversary rolled around, i decided that it might be time to get rid of this, for lack of a better world, rule.

my roommates and i went down to central market (think whole foods or trader joe's) and perused the chocolate section. i decided that if i was going to eat chocolate, it might as well be darn good chocolate. i got a bar of lindt milk chocolate and a bar of dagoba 58% organic dark chocolate.

when we got back to the house, my friend jonathan and his girlfriend lauren came by, and jonathan asked why i was going to stop not eating chocolate. i explained what i mentioned above (among other things) and he took one look at me and asked if i had heard about john francis. i hadn't. he (jonathan) said my response to his question reminded him of a talk francis had given for TED entitled John Francis Walks the Earth.

francis didn't talk for 17 years and gave up riding or driving motor vehicles for even longer. he speaks on behalf of the environment (which includes trees, people, air, etc). before you think it's just plain crazy and not responsible to not talk or drive cars for decades, know that he got an undergrad, a master's, a phd and became a un ambassador at the same time. the talk he gave for TED was about 19 minutes long and you can get to it from the above link. i highly recommend it.

francis concludes his talk by asking the audience, what is your prison? what is it that prevents you from fully engaging in your environment? with the people around you? look what one man accomplished (and is still accomplising) by releasing himself from his prisons.

yesterday i learned that i don't like milk chocolate anymore. its too sweet, and the kind that i tried is apparently not as sweet as other milk chocolates. after a square i'd had enough and my housemates happily helped with the rest. dark chocolate, on the other hand, is great, but a small square is more than enough flavor to satisfy. if you want to know more about the non-superficial lessons learned from this little experiment though, you'll have to ask me in person.