Creating Your Own Guide

ohayrachael

8 May 2018
DON’T PANIC
"Anything that can go wrong will go wrong". The same applies if you are hitchhiking in space. On your health and wellness journey, Murphy’s Law is inevitable...don’t panic!
Chances are, you may not always have first choice when commuting to your goals. Though it seems logical to lose 2 lbs a week for a year, you may not have an adequate guide to do so...yet. Just as a hitchhiker cannot always choose who picks them up in the galaxy, you too must decide in the moment how to navigate your journey throughout space and thyme. This is the moment in which The Guide is most helpful. The Guide is a “ standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom” (6) and “would require several...large buildings to carry it around in” (20)
You too may travel on your journey with a cumulative guide, and it is conveniently located within yourself. You have the skills to track down a repository of all knowledge and wisdom you have acquired based on personal experience. You have the potential to keep buildings worth of valuable information on your phone, on a laptop, or tablet. If you have the habit of indulging, then it’s safe to say that you will indulge again. Write this down in your guide if it affects your health. Indulging is not ideal for a diet, but it is important to know. For example, if you happen to be picked up by a Vogon ship, not the ideal hitchhike, it is important to know that the guide suggests “forget it” (38). Like an craving on a diet, or a hitchhiker on a vogon ship, some situations are less than favorable, but important to keep track of nonetheless.
Although it may be a risk, don’t let one indulgence or a vogon ship prevent you from derailing your efforts, especially if the planet you are on is being demolished in order to build a hyperspatial express route. Try new things with the hope that you will gather more data to put in your personal guide. Try using skills from your guide when temptations arise. De Escalate the situation. The more risks you take, the more concrete information you will be able to track.
Ford’s plans to survive did not crumble even though the guide advised against hitching with Vogons. Though the species “wouldn’t even lift a finger to save their own grandmothers”, new and helpful information surfaced. Ford and Arthur were able to hitch a ride via Dentrassi chefs. “It was because of this...piece of information that Ford Prefect was not now a whiff of hydrogen, ozone, and carbon monoxide”
In times of indulgence, the guide may make or break the survival of your health and wellness efforts. This is why it is important to keep track of information and to update it frequently. Whether it’s calories, macros, or fitness, or whether you use a phone, a computer, or journal: create your own guide with your own insights and update it often. It is important that all of the information in your guide be personal, truthful, and replicable. The more closely related to trends and experience, the better!
Write on, young scientists, write on!
Sources:
Adams, Douglas. Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Random House US, 2017.