My weight has fluctuated all my life, to my consternation. I do feel the health differences. Something that helps me is body shaming. (Making a serious point h

My weight has fluctuated all my life, to my consternation. I do feel the health differences. Something that helps me is body shaming. (Making a serious point here.) I have a sense of humor about life’s challenges and get a motivation boost from comments by strangers or familiars. I personally value the motivation aid, as motivation is often hard to manufacture. I find comments & judgements hilarious, as long as they reflect reality, and have no practical impact. I don’t judge my worth on my weight, but on my unstoppable optimism that yes, once again for the nth time, I am confident in my power to solve that problem, when time & circumstances allow. And until then? I am working on something else, worthy of progress. At a particularly poor time in my body composition state, I initiated a turnaround by telling a friend I had really enjoyed being fat for the last several years, but thought it might be nice to be skinny for a change. His laughter played into my making a real commitment, that I followed through on. Our brains are idiosyncratic things. I think an instinct/habit to consciously hold two or more orthogonal and opposite viewpoints about all serious things, keeps our world views and option awareness nimble. I have minority friends (of various blends) who are completely insensitive to mild discrimination most of the time. Just expect a fraction of people can’t get past pointless categorization and judgements. They either ignore it, to the point of looking right past it, or laugh or smile politely but pointedly in a way that draws attention to infractions in a way that disarms. People are often surprised by being called out, but not being shamed, discounted, or their immediate purpose side tracked in any way. Humor and a thick skin go a long way in life to protect our mental & social health. [Absolutely not making light of shaming or belittling anyone. We are not born with all the armor we need. But it is useful to know that our reactions to smaller expressions of rudeness can take positive forms, even provide opportunities to give unconfrontational feedback. They don’t have to undermine us. The best victories are achieved by finding a stance that lets us master conflicts we encounter without need for concern or motion.]