I don’t know enough about football to comment on the Brett Farve situation but let’s pretend for a minute that it’s as clear cut as it looks to an uninformed observer. It’s a good example of something a lot of people don’t want to admit – that not everything that feels right is healthy and just because you want it, doesn’t mean you should have it.

If you ever walk through Runyon Canyon, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Girls, bone thin, walking up a mountain in sweatshirts and pants when it’s a 100 degrees outside. They let Muhammad Ali box himself retarded. Nobody really questions a family destroying itself for no god damned good reason. Somebody’s whose personal life is in ruins doesn’t bother to stop and think about whether they should stop evangelizing the choices that got her there. We all have our own way of doing it.

Cognitive dissonance, the narrative fallacy , confirmation bias, rationalization, the resistance, defense mechanisms, evolutionary strategies, repression – a good chunk of what we want, what we’re pulled to, what ‘feels right’ is motivated by things other than us. So it takes a lot of hard work and hard questions to examine your life through a critical and detached lens. To break the cycle of impulse and indulgence. To become someone who’s in control of themselves, the direction that they go and the choices that they make.

“Our decisions should be made on the basis of what’s most healthy, not what will satisfy me the quickest. Live with integrity and a clear sense of right and wrong. Consider consequences. Listen to the inner voice of your instinct as carefully as a doctor checks your heartbeat.” Dr. Drew Pinsky Cracked: Putting Broken Lives Together Again