You Are What You Eat

I overheard a simple question today, and it felt a little like pieces of a puzzle falling together. It wasn't even a question meant to be answered, but I thought about it long after the moment passed—because maybe the answer to a question like that says a lot about who we are and what we're made of.

We talk a lot about consumption these days. We have catchy slogans like, "You are what you eat," and we watch hundreds of thousands of body and health-related videos every day. How to look better, how to eat better, how to do intermittent fasting. We're worried about gym clothes and how to burn fat and which foods have the most fiber or least carbs or highest protein.

Then we worry about screen time and technology addiction. We analyze the music we listen to, the movies we watch, the books we read, and the impact certain words may or may not have when passed from one person to another. (Seriously, don't get me started on the Christian aversion to modern-day "cuss words." Side Note: The fear of cuss words is called Kakologophobia, which I think is hilarious.)

"You are what you eat" usually comes from a good place of dietary mindfulness, self-awareness, and moderation. But what about non-traditional consumption—like social media and advertising and all the other things we take in during the course of the day? What about the idea that what we absorb with eyes and ears shapes us just as much as what we eat? And what if we learned to look at this consumption with compassion, rather than comparison?

The question I heard this morning was, "When's the last time you put your phone down feeling more grateful than when you picked it up?"

I still remember the world before smartphones, and the way my first one felt like an open door. Through it, I could access people and places from all over the world. I could look up anything I wanted to know, and as social media became more and more prominent, I fed my sense of curiosity almost endlessly. At a moment's notice, I could research any topic, learn the answer to any question. The smartphone connected the ecosystem of humanity in a beautiful way...until it didn't. Somewhere along the way, our phones stopped being tools we use, and became collars that tightened with each passing day.

I think social media had a lot to do with that. And I don't often struggle with comparison, but I think we're all susceptible to how it chips away at gratitude and contentment. We want that body, that house, that relationship, that life—and before we know it, we've consumed so much of other people that our personal development isn't even personal anymore, and our sense of identity is dictated by where we stand on a scale of systemized envy.

We talk about it all the time. We limit social media, campaign against screen time, campaign to keep our kids from drowning in an ocean of content they're not ready for. And now, we compare that, too. We judge each other based on how often we post, what apps we're using, how many devices our children do or do not have access to.

But maybe social media wasn't the whole problem after all. Maybe it only highlights a problem that was already there: the trap of all-or-nothing mentality.

We've all fallen into this one. It's the one that makes us think that if eating an entire cake is bad, cake itself must be bad. The one that tells us if green eyes are pretty, brown eyes are not. The one that makes us choose between perfectly sterile, photo-ready homes and the cluttered spaces we actually live in.

The all-or-nothing dichotomy that stole our discernment. That made us forget the joy of all-things-in-moderation, leaving us afraid to consume and interact at all.

But what if we exchanged comparison for curiosity? What if we saw the world as a giant spice rack that's delicious specifically because of its variety?

As a mom, I watched my children learn the world around them by consuming. Dora the Explorer helped them learn about adventure and problem-solving. Ni Hao Kai-Lan nurtured my oldest daughter's fascination with foreign language and culture. The Backyardigans taught my youngest that despite the rigidity of Autism, pretend play is not illegal. And music taught them both to love movement and storytelling.

They weren't comparing themselves; they were learning that the world is bigger than they are. That one person might feel this way, and another might feel that way. If the world is a spice rack, media consumption taught my children that it's okay if some people like cilantro and other people don't. Not because one is better, but because it's okay to be different.

They learned about the world from books, from songs, from TV shows. They've watched how-to videos, listened to podcasts—and yes, they've scrolled through social media. And now I wonder if one of the greatest life lessons for all of us was buried there all along.

Maybe it doesn't have to be all-or-nothing. Maybe our phones aren't the problem at all. Maybe it's deeper than the vicarious experiences we find on those screens.

Maybe the real problem is what we allow those things to bring out of us.

*****

These days, I keep my phone on silent most of the time. I've turned off the notifications for almost every app. And I'm getting better and better at asking "What can I learn from this?" instead of "Why don't I have that?"

The truth is, we're consuming some thing in some way almost all the time—but there's a difference between consuming something and being consumed by it, and we still have a choice. We can consume endless content and surrender control of our narrative, or we can consume the experiences of the people around us and let those experiences fuel our growth.

The same Instagram feed that discourages one person inspires another, the same movie that softens one heart will harden another, and the same phone that connects us to people we love can convince us we aren't enough. Because the problem isn't the feed or the phone or the book or the number of letters in a particular word. The world is not inherently dangerous, and the things we consume universally are not universally problematic.

And maybe it's not about consuming less or comparing less, either. Maybe we just need to pay closer attention, to notice what leaves us more grateful. To appreciate what makes us more curious. Undaunted living has never meant hiding, isolating, or rejecting the world, and we don't need to avoid every challenge that comes our way.

We grow the most by moving through our challenges without losing ourselves in them—and a truly Undaunted life is found in the courage to choose curiosity over comparison and appreciation over envy.

You don't have to be fearless or untouchable to be Undaunted. You just need the kind of heart that still sees beauty in ugly places and creativity where everyone else conforms. Choose abundance no matter what you have. Remember who you were before the world had an opinion, before comparison convinced you that curiosity wasn't enough. Wherever you go, there you are anyway, so you might as well...

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