On the fairness of life (aka, yeah, it's not fair that I can't eat everything I want)

I had this little revelation in the grocery store yesterday. Those of you in the neighborhood of a Trade Joe's will be familiar with all the yummy chocolates they have up above the frozen bins. Chocolate covered espresso beans, chocolate covered peanuts, chocolate covered you-name-its. So I was looking at them all, wondering whether I wanted to get any, and eventually decided that, no, my life was complete enough as it was without a huge container of malted milk balls around.

But in coming to that conclusion, I was thinking how patently unfair it is. It's unfair that my husband can eat an entire pizza and not gain an ounce. It's unfair that if I so much as look at a piece of cake I gain two pounds. It's unfair that every night my stomach grumbles as I go to sleep.

The thing is, though, who said it was going to be fair? I'm sure all of the millions and billions of starving people in the world tonight probably think it's pretty unfair that they're starving and I'm not. Where did I get this idea that life has to be fair? It's not, and once you can come to grips with that, I think you're better off in the long run.

So I'm going to try to stop feeling sorry for myself, and hanging on to ideas of just how wrong and sad it is, and learn to eat within my means, treat myself regularly, and be healthy; however that looks for me. And I'm going to stop thinking that I'm somehow owed the ability to eat and metabolize chocolate at the same rate as my husband, or a fifteen year old. I am not owed that, and once I get over that, I think I'll be headed in the right direction.