Live Free, Laugh Hard

I grew up in Finland knowing a term that directly translates to "New Helpless" in English. This term was used to describe a phenomenon that was reported to be on the rise in Generation X. New helplessness referred to young adults who were moving out on their own just to discover that they were completely ill-equipped for "adulting." They lacked basic life skills, such as cleaning, cooking, and self-care because of either excessive pampering by their parents or simple laziness to learn. In today's world, we can add a third group of "new helpless" young adults - those raised by "new helpless" parents and thus lacking a role model for learning life skills. In my early teens, I heard a lot about the "new helpless" because my dad was a particularly harsh critic of these people he described as, "dummies whose parents did too much for them so they never learned anything and are now out there walking around with their t...

I had been a health focused person all my life.  Yet, there were several poor health behaviors that I couldn’t quite kick.  The worst of them was my tendency to binge eat and binge drink.  I was also extremely hooked on sugar, finding my cravings often impossible to control.     In my 20s, I compensated for my binging and sugar consumption by exercising more after a “bingy” weekend or evening and by limiting my calories 4-5 days a week to allot for a few binges each week.  It worked well enough to keep my weight in control but inside my head, I was often going crazy with the desire to stuff myself silly or to eat a half a German chocolate cake in one sitting.  I was often bloated, my skin would break out after particularly bad weekends, and I always gained about 10 pounds on vacations when I would allow a total loss of control.     In my 30s, I got busy with school and life and my poor choices got out-of-control.  Ins...