Is the Buffet your Friend or Foe?

I used to love the all-you-can-eat buffet. It wasn’t just because I could eat as much as I wanted. It was about value, too, I told myself. The more food I get for the money, the better the deal was.

For a couple of years now, I have changed my attitude on these buffets. I have to face the fact that I can no longer eat the way I used to. I am not quite to the point of counting calories, but I do need to practice eating more wisely. Thus, I have avoided buffets most of the time.

Yesterday, as I walked past the buffet line at the restaurant where I ate lunch, it dawned on me that I have been abdicating my responsibility for self control. I was blaming the buffet business for my own lack of self control over what and how much I ate.

What I eat and how much I eat is entirely my responsibility not that of any restaurant or grocery store. I know what I should eat. I know how much I should eat. If I cannot learn to control those things, what in my life can I expect to control?

In case you haven’t caught it, in this story eating is both the issue and an analogy for every area of my life and yours. As adults we are responsible for our own behavior. We cannot blame the availability of options or pressure exerted by others for behaviors we choose not to bring into line with what we know is right.

There is still grace, of course. On behaviors on which we do not trust ourselves, we have the option of analogously avoiding the restaurants that offers buffets. It is often in our own best interest to avoid putting ourselves in situations where we do not have the personal inner strength and determination to make the right choices.