Massimo Pigliucci

But then you think about it and say, ah, but wait a minute.

Those are all judgments or decisions to act or not to act.

What I don't control, what is not up to me is the outcomes.

Sure, I can eat healthy.

I can go to the gym, which I do, largely.

And I go regularly to the doctor.

Nevertheless, there are a lot of other factors that contribute to the outcome, to the actual health that are not under my control.

I can make all the efforts I want, but to some extent, I am limited by my own genetics and my own early upbringing.

We know that both the genetics and early development, even intrauterine development before you're born, and certainly the first few months of development, those are crucial to determine how you're going to respond long-term to certain things.

And I had no control over those.

I can't rearrange my genes.

I didn't pick my genes and so on and so forth.

So the general idea then becomes that, look, on the one hand, you accept from the get-go the notion that you do not have full control over anything, anything that is external, none of those things.

And you need to be okay with it because what are your choices?

There's only two choices.

You're either okay with it or you throw a tantrum.

Throwing a tantrum doesn't help.

It's the kind of thing that children do because they're not emotionally mature.

An adult is not supposed to do that sort of stuff.

Also, throwing a tantrum not only doesn't help, but actually gets in the way because now you're adding the actual injury from the external to an internal imposed injury.