Dictionary.com defines the word as follows:
[Middle English ipocrisie, from Old French, from Late Latin hypocrisis, play-acting, pretense, from Greek hupokrisis, from hupokrīnesthai, to play a part, pretend, hupo-, hypo-, + krīnesthai, to explain middle voice of krīnein, to decide, judge.]
(noun: pl., -sies.)
- The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.
- An act or instance of such falseness.
Sounds pretty muddled, yet we live it every day. How do I define hypocrisy today? Let me tell you. WW and dietitians tells us we should eat multiple small meals throughout the day, so our metabolism stays ramped up, and we don’t store calories and turn them into ugly yellow fat cells (yes, I have seen it, our meeting leader once brought a one pound chunk of fat cells to a meeting!). What they don’t take into account is that while many of us have regular nine to five jobs, or shifts, sometimes, things get thrown out of whack.
Take my last 48 hours for example. I arrived in Orlando after traveling 8 hours on Sunday night, around 11 PM. By the time I got to bed it was 1 AM Monday. Up again at 8, to be at a client at 9. The hotel breakfast was already packed down, so out the door on an empty stomach. So far, not bad, right? Well, now it gets fun. After lunch, back to the hotel to get some rest before coming back at midnight to do a software upgrade. Sounds easy, as long as your body cooperates. I never got my brain to shut down, so no nap. After a quick dinner, off to work. Around 8:30 Tuesday morning I left the client site, get back to the hotel..yup, you guessed it, breakfast has already been cleaned up. Too damn tired to ask for anything, I stumble into bed. At 10:30 my phone rings, one of my coworkers calling from AZ, who, in a startled voice asked “Did I wake you?” when I mumbled “hello” into the phone. Back to sleep, till 2:30, then back to the client, still no food. Anyone see something amiss here? Left there again at 5 or so, when it was clear that all was well, the new software version was running well.
So, you may be wondering, where is the hypocrisy in this? Well, here it comes, get ready! After starting this blog yesterday, and going on and on about doing the right thing, eating better, etc, I stopped at Long Horn for a steak on the way home. Not just a steak though, a big, honkin, huge 22 oz. porterhouse steak, still mooing. Add to that a loaded baked potato, and a side salad (got to get my veggies in), a loaf of bread, and a basket of chips cooked in oil, and I was in glutenous heaven. FOOOOOOOOD!!! I feel alive again, like a real person, never mind that my body is completely out of whack. I even took the leftover bread and chips back to the hotel, so I could finish them up, and not feed some kid in Africa with my left overs.
How’s that for being hypocritical? Well, there it is, my confession for the day.
Oh, i have to admit, that after I ate two more slices of bread, my finally engaged, and I closed the to-go box up, and threw it all in the trash. go me.