What's Your Favorite Flavor of Kool-Aid?

Growing up, my brother and I LOVED Kool-Aid Squeezeits. For some reason, my parents considered these a "healthier" option than sodas, so they would buy us our own 6-packs each time we went to the grocery store.

There was an unwritten rule in our house about what flavor you could drink: Either one of us could drink the red tropical-punch-flavored option. But I was forbidden to drink my brother's purple grape (which was fine by me unless I was dying of thirst because artificial grape is disgusting), and anytime he put a hand on my blue raspberries, I threw a total tantrum.

Lately I've been thinking how we're all just drinking our favorite flavor of Kool-Aid in life.

Unlike the People's Temple Agricultural Project (AKA the Jonestown Cult), we're doing so figuratively and not literally, thankfully. And still, we all have the metaphorical hills we're willing to die on.

From the seemingly trivial things like what type of workout is "best" (HIIT, yoga, running, Cross Fit, Zumba) or the "right" diet to follow for optimum health (Mediterranean, vegan, paleo, Whole30, intermittent fasting) to the bigger issues like religion and politics, we all have beliefs we will throw a tantrum over if someone tries to "take" them from us by dissuading us.

Here's the thing, though: No matter what the issue, we can't know anything with absolute certainty.

Sometimes we want to rely on scientific proof. But the science is always changing and almost always contradicts itself. Who remembers when eggs were terrible for you because of the cholesterol and then when they were healthy--and then unhealthy again?

Sometimes we want to rely on physical evidence. But findings, like scientific data, can be manipulated, rearranged, or, at the very least, remain still undiscovered. Every year they're discovering "new" species and finding others previously believed to be extinct still in the wild.

And sometimes we rely on nothing but the way we feel about something. Call it sixth sense, intuition, or divine inspiration, we're emotionally and feeling-driven creatures.

Whatever it is you believe to be true, you can find "evidence" to back it up. And you will find the evidence if you're looking for it--which you are. Because we have an innate need to be "right."

This is because the human brain is really only capable of three functions:

1. generalizing the information we receive to make everything fit nicely together and coordinate;

2. distorting information that doesn't quite fit to make it fit; and

3. deleting information that doesn't align and we aren't yet ready to make adjustments in our thinking for.

And yet we live in a world full of paradoxes, where multiple contradictory things can be true at once. In a world where everything is constantly changing and evolving. In a world that wants to be black and white but is really every shade of gray.

I'm not saying you shouldn't have your beliefs. You can't get through this life without them. And besides, the beliefs you choose to subscribe to are what make you unique and create your personality.

I'm just reminding you that beliefs are not facts. In fact, facts are not really facts but beliefs enough people have chosen to buy into until time/evidence/circumstance require we readjust.

So next time you find yourself in a conversation with someone who swears grape Kool-Aid is "the best" and you think it's "the worst," remember that we're all just drinking the Kool-Aid.

We all get to decide which flavor is our favorite and stand by it.

And, if you try hard enough, I bet you can find a version of tropical punch that you'll both enjoy and connect on ;-p

With Fierce Love,

Chazz