Defined as…Self control. Determination. Drive. Grit. Single mindedness.

Can you relate?

Picture Helen, who wasn't going to indulge in even the teeniest, tiniest, itsy bitsyish, mini slice of the cake she had just baked. Controlled. Determined. Eating the left over batter, licking the icing from the knife (after tasting it three, okay seventeen times with her soup ladle (where did she put that tablespoon?) and, lastly, wasn't an eight inch round just simply too big? Compelled to carve it into a six inch round, and being no where near the garbage, Helen consumed the 2 inches of excess.  

But she did not eat a slice of cake.

Immediately Helen called her Weight Watcher, Over Eater Anonymous and Jenny Craig support groups to be commended and congratulated. 

Had she truly exerted self control? 

Actually. Yes.

At least according to the social psychologists Roy Baumeister and the science editor of the New York Times, John Tierney, she did. In their book "Willpower" Rediscovering the Greater Human Strength" they concluded that "willpower is limited and depends on a continuous supply of the simple sugar glucose." When glucose is depleted, you fall prey to impulse shopping, affairs and cookies."

Let me understand this.

If you want to maintain self control, eat a few cookies. Not enough cookies and you might throw yourself on the nearest available warm body, after buying those coveted Jimmy Choo's, and finishing off the entire packet of Oreos?

Does this make sense to you?

Apparently it doesn't make sense to Veronica Job a psychologist who avers that "willpower can be quite limited, but only if you believe it is."  In other words, willpower is in your head, not because of your body's biology.

Let's see.

Tell yourself often and loudly that you won't lose control and indulge in a spree of your choice. Or, eat some cookies, a banana or two, maybe a Mars Bar and your appetites are sated? 

Pass the guacomole, I'm going with door number 2.

“You look great, gorgeous, fantastic,” he said.  “Oh, no, really, I don’t” she said, casting her eyes downward, eyelashes a flutter. Gently rearranging the curl that had fallen into her line of vision, was she pantomiming the ultimate female flirt maneuver?

Actually not.

She was, in fact, quickly scanning the latest computer software she had downloaded. Not remembering the name of her newest app, “Liar Liar Pants on Fire” while seemingly very pedestrian, nonetheless popped into her head.

Imagine it.

No shifty eyes giving one away.

“I’ll call. Had a great time. Let’s do this again.”

“It’s a very very safe investment.”

“Don’t you age?”

Sweetly murmured sentiments. Terms of endearment. Heartfelt.

And in the palm of your hand, with a flick of your finger you ask your fantastic iphone 4, “is this all true,” and it coos softly back to you “not a word of it.”

In 1968, the story goes, some enterprising creatives at the venerated advertising agency BBDO slipped 15 marbles, or thereabouts, under the vegetables in a bowl of vegetable soup. Not for flavor enhancement, you understand, but to keep the vegetables from sinking to the bottom of the bowl.  Clever?

Apparently not.

The FTC, the watchdog of communications, declared that advertising with false claims was a no no.

Really?

Didn’t you think, as I did, that Lite foods would make you skinnier, dabbing a bit of fragrance here and there, you’d be irresistable, slathering toning cream all over your body would result in nary a wrinkle, dent or bump?

The FTC, apparently, only moniters out and out manipulations not wishful thinking.

Worried you’ve been had?? Duped? What you see isn’t real??

There’s hope on the horizon.

Sooner than later you can have your very own photoshop detector.

In the works is a software tool to measure how much a beauty or fashion photo has been altered. Can you imagine? The age spots actually didn’t disappear, the waist line didn’t shrink, the lashes didn’t grow.

And, for the online dating world, total and complete havoc will ensue.

I love it.

Take a good luck at this image. Which one is the healthy one?

Finished?

It’s the little guy on the right. Would you have picked him?

That’s why I’m not a scientist, but a slave to the fashion magazines. I was certain that the sleek, okay gaunt one, was the epitome of healthy. Slightly hunch back, maybe because he’s never gotten used to being tall.

Anyhow, want to know why the clearly chubbier one is the healthy one?

He’s had his senescent cells zapped. Gone, out, finished, kaput. And what do these senescent cells do? They age us.

Three words that should never be in a sentence together.

Remove these cells and viola, age related diseases are eradicated.

In mice.

But scientists are working on this for us humans. If they can, during our middle years,  make these nasty cells go away, our knees might not creak, our eyes may remain clear, and our skin may remain supple.

Don’t get too excited. It isn’t happening in your lifetime. Or mine.

But if you know any aging mice, let them know there’s hope.

Right, it’s a hydrangea.

But, even Thomas Moore knew that hydrangea wouldn’t work itself gracefully into a line of poetry.

And besides, finding one rose alive and well while all its mates are preparing themselves to become sachet, wasn’t easy.

Anyhow, don’t know about you, but for me this image provokes a myriad of feelings.

Ready for my philosophical moment?

Nah.

But, I do imagine for some this does cause a moment or two of reflection…beginnings, endings, time to fertilize…