Total Human Optimization, to me, is the action of manipulating as many variables as possible, to best benefit my state of well-being in body and mind.
I am of the belief that having my body and mind be in the most optimal state possible, is the foundation of living a happy, healthy and successful life.
For if I am in a healthy body, I may think clearly and act effectively.
Based on my experience on my Total Human Optimization journey, the healthier I become, the better my life, in general, has become.
In part, the reason I care so much about Total Human Optimization is because I been destroying my health for as long as I can remember, and have put myself and my body through terrible suffering.
Contrary to the title, this post, isn't about how I have achieved Total Human Optimization, rather, quite the opposite. This post is about where I came from. It is the story of where I began, and my painful history of my past actions.
Chapter 1: Painful Beginnings
I had always been chubby, since I was a little child. Maybe it was because I love eating, or maybe I was a dopamine junkie since I was a kid. Nonetheless, this problem went completely unchecked.
I was considered morbidly obese by the time I reached my teens.
As if that weren't bad enough, I started smoking daily since age 13 and continued to eat terribly all through my teens. I spent the entirety of my teenage life looking dumpy and smelling like death as the quaint aroma of body odour blended tastefully with the smell of tabacco.
I started out smoking cannabis in the beginning of my twenties which was innocent enough at the time. Except, I had just got into the working world and started upon my intitial entreprenuerial endevour. The idea of "Work-Life Balance" was not a word I had heard of at that point in my life.
I was working 16 hour days, 7 days a week and went home to the only pleasureable habit, which was smoking cannabis.
The habit of innocently smoking cannabis on occassion, turned into a substance dependency rather quickly. When cannabis stopped becoming so available, my standards for what I would put into my body started to decline as well. It was around this point that I was introduced to a "Synthethic Cannabinoid" called K2. It might ring a bell for some, for it is notoriously bad for you. I did not know it at that point of time, but it was the beginning of the end.
What I did not understand at that point of time, was that unlike cannabis, which had a negligible effect on your body, K2 was a whole different monster.
Not only was K2 much stronger than regular cannabis, which left you high and sometimes immovable for the entirety of a day, prolonged use would cause yourbrain to more or less stop functioning properly.
The condition "Brain Fuzz" was coined, by K2 users as we unanimously found ourselves in an inescapable zombie-like state, where your mind started to go on auto-pilot and you would have zero awareness of what you were doing. I most notably remember one day, where I was out and about from the morning, and found myself jolting awake at around 5 pm with zero recollection of the series of events leading up to me standing in the middle of town. I only had a fuzzy memory of leaving the house in the first place. This months after stopping my use of K2.
Long after realizing I could no longer continue this behavior, I suffered the long-term effects of my foolish behavior. It was the end of my K2 abuse, but far from my general substance abuse and depression which had began to set into my mind, and all productive thoughts and actions started to fade away bit by bit.
It is by this point, that my very existence started to hurt. I had fallen into the vicious cycle of depression and substance abuse. My default mode was of utter sadness and hopelessness of my situation. Feeling guilty for not being any form of productive, and yet feeling hopeless to get started being productive.
I was suffering from a brain that had ceased to function normally from years of daily smoking and the consumption of dangerous poisons which shot directly to my brain.
I was never of clear mind, struggling to have any thoughts or emotions, and when there were thoughts and emotions, they were ones of crippling sadness and hopelessness.
To make matters worse, my substance abuse continued. Smoking my way through my days, hopelessly addicted to nicotine. Forever craving for a substance to help numb the pain.
I continued for a couple of years in this state, hopelessly clinging on to dear life, wondering how can I go on with life if life is perpetually filled with pain? The pain and suffering I felt, I abused drugs to try and numb.
I had reached a point where I found it necessary to stay high to make life bearable. I maintained a perpetual state of altered-consciousness. I would wake up, get high, then start my day. I often find myself blasted to the nines, high as a kite before my morning shower. I would get up from bed, pick up the pre-rolled joint and fire away.
This is my life now. How would I ever find a a way out of this one? The second the drugs ran out, the emotional turmoil would kick in again. So this is how I will stay. Was I slowly sprinting towards an early grave? Probably. Am I capable of turning this ship around?
I doubt it.
Then came a particular night.
The drinking, smoking and light drug abuse had been going on for a few hours. I've consumed a cocktail of difference substances as is. Just your regular fun and games. Then, someone pulled out a joint, and before lighting up, forewarned the group that whatever we were about to smoke was extremely strong.
Did it occur to me to ask what was in it? I'd be offended to think I would stop myself from taking it even if I knew.
I thought to myself, pfffffft, I've been doing this so long I'd be able to handle anything. 2 puffs and 30 seconds in, I knew I was in for a long night.
10 minutes later, I would find myself in the bathroom. Every cell in my body screaming in pain as my body desperately trying to purge the poisons of the night. I would swallow as much water into my system so that my body would have something to transport the poisons out of my system. I was not uncontrolably vomitting for a good hour before I managed to stand on my own two feet again.
When I did, I looked myself in the mirror, utterly destroyed by my own actions and told myself and my body, you deserve better. I made a promise to myself in that moment, that I would change my ways. For my body deserved better.
I deserved better.
It would be a lovely story would I be able to tell you that from that day forth I was a changed man.
Sadly, I was not. The process of change and the demolishing of habits took time and alot of effort to chip away.
Nonetheless, I am happy and proud to state, that now, as I am writing this, that I managed to put my past to rest and have not only changed this terrible behaviour, but have recovered my body to the point where I may actually begin calling my daily practices 'Optimization' rather than 'Recovery'.
I have stopped smoking completely, lost the desire to constantly be high, lost a majority of excess fat on my body and as opposed to dealing with depression, I am happy as a default state of being.
More so than that, I am growing stronger and healthier by the day, not only reversing the damage I have previously incurred onto my body, but now entering into new territories of health where I have never even been. Feeling better than I can ever say I have experience before.
I have begun to bring my body into an optimized state where I am stronger than the average human in a multitude of ways which I intend to go into detail about in future posts.
This is my journey of putting my body through hell and back, and now coming out the other side, stronger than ever with a fiery desire to share with many kindred individuals out there, who I know who are suffering a similar fate to mine, to turn their life around and be able to feel amazing because you are of good health, being naturally happy because life is amazing as is.
To be able to enjoy your day to the fullest without the need for any substance.
This is my journey of Total Human Optimization from first being a complete dump of a human being and I am very eager to share how I did it.
If you'd like to learn more about my story, and the leap of faith I've taken with Steemit, give my blog post a read as well!
