The Irony of Gimmicks

Hey everyone. Hope all is well.

I have a new concept about which I have been thinking and I thought you might like to hear about it.

Gimmicks

I know too many people, way, WAY too many people looking for a quick fix or what I would call a “gimmick” to solve their problems.

At Costco two days back, my wife pointed to some kind of new powder on the market and said, “See that? That’s the Collagen Peptide power I need for my skin”.

At $50 bucks for less than a month of servings, I had to take a hard pass.

There were a few more items in our shopping along that particular vein she feels she “needs” as she ages and deals with all the “problems” a woman hitting woman aging issues will face.

Problems, in my view, which are all promised to be fixed by various gimmicks being peddled all over the internet and throughout stores in America.

I’ve been thinking about this some the past days.

We have new gimmicks coming at us constantly.

• Powders

• Creams

• Pills

• Drinks

• Injections

All of these promise miracles to the American consumer telling us it will reverse a lifetime of poor habits. Poor habits which have created the state in which many of us now find ourselves.

Generally these gimmicks are about fixing primarily our obesity and lack of muscularity or “tone”.

Some, promise to reverse the properties of our aging skin, making us look younger. Skin, that with age, will stretch and wrinkle. Made worse of course, through stress, anxiety, sun exposure, and or course, not taking care of it by keeping hydrated properly.

There are even pills and creams which promise penis growth and breast enhancement.

We have pills to deal with our depression and anxiety prescribed by doctors who’s goal it seems is to keep us on them for life, lining their pockets with residual, passive income from big Pharma for doing so.

It All Costs

If one were to put an adding machine to the task of tallying the costs of the various pills, creams, medications and liquids we can/should be taking to deal with all our ailments, it would be enough to make a small house payment…I swear.

And Americans will pay it!

Some, out of their own pocket. Some, financed by the taxpayers through insurance companies paying for their “meds”.

Americans will pay VAST sums of money to promote both their vanity and their laziness.

The costs, in most cases, could have been avoided if for their entire lives they did more with their time to be active, exercise and simply drink more water.

An old friend of mine, Joe Palm, once said something in a sermon years back to the effect of

“On Sunday, football is a combination of two groups. 22 men on the field putting on a game who desperately need a rest being watched all day by a group of people who DESPERATELY are in need of being on the field for activity”.

Truer words have not been spoken.

None Work

Newsflash, none of the gimmicks I’ve mentioned work. We convince ourselves they do, but they don’t. At least that’s my observation.

I haven’t looked much at gimmicks for my own use. Well, I lie some. I have been trying Magnesium Citrate Supplement to attempt to lower my blood pressure (and it’s a big fail…total waste of money). Other than that, most of my life has been committed to eating moderately well ( I do LOVE candy and sweets), drinking 80 plus ounces of water per day and pretty serious, consistent weight lifting and cardiovascular workouts.

It has been said to me on more than one occasion that the fact I still maintain a 33” waist at 56 is only due to good genetics.

This is really nothing more than an attempt to minimize the hard work I have consistently put forth to stay relatively fit in an effort to provide a “pass” for those with less than stellar health or physical fitness of the same age (even decades younger).

So, instead of doing the same, they look for the next gimmick to help them “fix” their problems.

Again, nothing is going to work, in spite of the promises made by the manufacturers. In spite of what Ophra may now be peddling, a woman who’s life has been a see-saw of weight gain and weight loss.

The Final Irony

This brings me to the end of my thought this morning on my walk.

Here we have a country in America FULL of people all looking for some kind of easy fix to their problems.

“I want to fix my weight problem, my lack of muscle problem, my inability to walk up stairs without getting winded, my depression problem…with the least amount of effort possible. “

We are so lazy, we don’t even want to have to be committed to taking the easy pill daily.

Some are so intense in the attempts to avoid effort, we will celebrate a new concoction we only have to take, say…once a month…like my dog’s heartworm medicine.

Again, almost all of these easy, effortless products will not work.

There is no simple way to fix years of bad habits and poor behavior.

YET in America today we are plagued with people who refuse to believe in Jesus Christ as their risen savior.

Here God says to us, by sending Jesus Christ to earth that if we simply believe in his son as coming here, being crucified, and then rising from the grave, we are saved and get a ticket to enter heaven.

Here’s the easiest thing you can ever do that is the BEST fix to ALL your problems, hands down, and yet, most reject it. Many reject it as being too simple, too easy! HOW TOTALLY IRONIC.

To add to this irony, many of those looking for easy fixes to all their physical and mental ailments are Christians and many of said Christians are hell bent on complicating the message of the risen Jesus; adding to it rules and doctrine which complicate the whole simplified version God designed for us - for our salvation.

It’s hilarious to me that a nation and people who look so feverously and spend so much hard earned money in an attempt to avoid any level of effort to fix their problems will pooh- pooh or simply refuse the utter simplicity of Jesus Christ as savior.

And boy, they think they have problems now?

They ain’t seen nothing yet. Death will open a whole new adventure for these deniers in an effort to avoid pain.

Sucks to be them.

-rob out

PS Dr. Laura famously said frequently on her show about weight loss and it’s simplicity. “It simple, you wanna lose weight? Move a little more, eat a little less”.

That tip just saved you thousands of dollars per year should you implement it instead of spending money on the next easy fix for weight loss.