It happens occasionally that I open an email to read these words, "I guess I am just one of those people who the surgery is not going to help." These defeated hopeless words break my heart. Nobody should feel that dispirited after taking the extreme measure of weight loss surgery to fight their life threatening morbid obesity.
Sometimes people are defeated by physical problems or complications after surgery. Sometimes they do not receive adequate care and instruction from the surgeon who performed the surgery. And sometimes they simply don't take responsibility for making the surgery work, they just hope for the best and expect the surgery to do all the work. We cannot always control the first two defeats. We can always control the last defeat by taking full responsibility for making the surgery work.
Ayn Rand, the noted 20th century philosopher wrote, "The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me." It is with this kind of hell-bent determination many WLS pre-ops fight their insurance providers to have the surgery. The same grit determination must be employed after surgery. If we are to achieve a healthy life we absolutely must fight like a mad dog against everything that made us obese in the first place. We must take control and own responsibility for our success.
Recently at LivingAfterWLS we framed our "Empowerment Philosophy", the creed of ethics to which we subscribe. In part it reads, "LivingAfterWLS believes that success with weight loss surgery, and in life, can be found when we focus on inner strength rather than inner weakness. As recovering morbidly obese people we have often been made to feel weak for our illness. We are not weak. We have inner resources that make us beautiful unique beings with intelligence, talent and love to share with the world.
"The LivingAfterWLS philosophy empowers individuals to recognize and harness their own inner strengths. The first step to personal empowerment is personal responsibility. LivingAfterWLS holds individuals accountable for making their weight loss surgery successful. When individuals take responsibility they feel liberated and motivated to invest personal equity in their success."
Think about how self-sabotage behavior causes feelings of defeat and a downward spiral of discouragement from which there seems no escape. I recognize people in this state of despair when I read email that says, "I can't stop myself from eating all the wrong things," or "The weight is coming back on" or "I never believed this would really work for me." These people are locked in a hopeless prison cell, they are not free.
But think about the freedom personal responsibility brings. John Galt said, "The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it's yours. But to win it requires total dedication and a total break with the world of your past."
A total break with the world of your past. That means escaping the prison of behaviors that caused morbid obesity. Do not return there. Say goodbye and good riddance. Galt continued, "Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. . . Fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the morality of life and yours is the battle for any achievement, any value, any grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on this earth."
Galt was not talking about weight loss surgery. He was taking about life. But for me, weight loss surgery and life are entwined. Weight loss surgery gave me life and now I own the responsibility to fight for that life using WLS as a powerful tool. By taking ownership I am empowered and freed.
Today is the day. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Today is the day we must take personal responsibility and become liberated and motivated to invest personal equity in our own weight loss surgery success.
