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We are killing ourselves.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve had chronic wrist pain for 2 years.

Several months ago, I had my second surgery to fix the issue with my wrist.

I’m trying to strengthen my wrist with physio, but it’s excruciating.

I’ve just been for a walk, and I couldn’t help but think pride was the cause of my injury.

Pride seems to be causing problems for everyone nowadays.

Let me start with how pride destroyed me

I injured my wrist lifting too much weight at the gym.

Why did I want to lift so much weight, you ask?

Well, it was because I wanted to gain as much muscle as possible to attract the ladies.

I was trying to gain muscle above all else to look superior to others and increase my chances of getting with more women.

The sad truth is that most women don’t even care about muscles that much.

And the ex-girlfriend I had during the time of the injury couldn’t care less about how much muscle I had.

My story is only scratching the surface

My friend told me a story about his friend, who was on steroids and is a bodybuilder.

Apparently, this bodybuilder lifted so much weight while barbell squatting that his knee popped out, and he had to have surgery to fix it.

Also, when I’ve browsed online, I’ve seen the ‘turkey teeth’ phenomenon, where young men and women travel to Turkey to have their teeth replaced with white, artificial teeth, even though their teeth were fine.

I’ve heard and read horror stories about Turkey teeth.

Also becoming more common is leg-lengthening surgery, which seems problematic.

Men can’t bear the receding hairline anymore

Every man and his father is getting a hair transplant these days.

That’s fine if people want to do that, but coming from someone with a receding hairline, having one isn’t that bad.

We’ve turned into a superficial bunch 

It seems most people nowadays are prioritising their appearance over their character.

I would rather try to improve my character, that is to say, working on being a good person, as religion and philosophy advise, than what hairstyle I have.

So many people are putting the cart before the horse

I think character is what we should all start focusing on improving, rather than our looks.

But even when people want to improve their looks (which is ok in moderation), many go straight for artificial treatments.

For example, instead of losing weight the healthy way, people are turning to Ozempic and gastric bypasses.

Instead of building muscle to stay healthy, people are taking steroids and lifting so heavy that they’re stressing their bodies beyond their natural limit, which is a recipe for injury.

The point I’m trying to make

I don’t want to seem like I’m moralising.

I just want people to improve themselves for the right reasons and the right way.

Because most of these treatments I’ve mentioned are unnecessary.

And for many people, they cause a lot more harm than good.

I’ve fallen into the pride trap.

And I’ve been in chronic pain for 2 years, and I don’t think my wrist will ever be the same.

I don’t want you to suffer as I have.

Because life is much more complicated when you’re in chronic pain.

You have one body.

If you ruin it, it may be ruined forever.

As a rule of thumb, I only have medical procedures when I need them

A word you might not have come across is called iatrogenics, which means illness, injury or even death caused unintentionally by medical treatment.  

For example, I read a story about a girl who died from taking the contraceptive pill. God bless her. Her name was Aine Hurst. She was only 19 and from the United Kingdom.

That’s iatrogenics.

And that’s why I avoid unnecessary medical procedures, and I advise you to do the same.

Iatrogenics causes more deaths around the world than road traffic accidents, malaria and diabetes.

But that’s only the ones we can distinguish by recorded fatalities.

Many effects from iatrogenics go under the radar.

For example, my mum got put on potent antidepressants as a teenager. 

These antidepressants had a gruesome withdrawal effect on her and have permanently affected her to this day.

And the whole situation has caused a massive strain on my family. 

I know for a fact there are lots of families going through similar scenarios to mine.

Why do you think we’re never told about iatrogenics?

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Credit to Wiki Commons for the image.

This post was the 12/02/2026 edition of my newsletter.