Why Do We Do Not What We Should?

I have asthma, which has over time gotten worse, so now I am supposed to do a breathing treatment four times a day. This consists of putting the medicine in the little nebulizer cup, putting my lips around the mouthpiece and turning it on; about 20 minutes later, I remove it from my mouth, shake the little bit of medicine out of the nebulizer cup and turn the machine off. Afterwards I can breathe better. As you can tell, it isn't hard, or terribly time consuming, I can even do this while continuing in many of my activities. So it absolutely confounds me as to why I hate doing it so much? In fact, there are many things that I have great benefits from, but avoid doing; why is that?

Something else that many of us have trouble with, is our diet. According to WHO "An unhealthy diet is one of the major risk factors for a range of chronic diseases, including cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes and other conditions linked to obesity" Now granted that I have a special situation, in that having hurt myself cooking more than a few times, my husband would prefer I do nothing more than microwave, and he gets take-out food for me and given the financial situation these days, this means from much cheaper options these days, but even if money weren't so tight, getting healthy vegetables and fruits from take-out isn't very easy, is it? I really like fruits and veggies and actually prefer them over meat. Even still cooking at home, we still don't make or eat all the healthy vegetables in each meal that we should.

What really confounds me, is that God calls us to live a life led by the Spirit and to do all that He asks us to do; if we do this, we are happier and feel better emotionally, so why don't we? Everything He asks of us is because He knows that it is the best thing for us. For instance He asks us to walk in the Spirit instead of the flesh, then we have have more joy and peace. I really like joy and peace. Yet think of how peaceful and joyful we feel after watching a movie filled with death in all it's gory details. Think of how hard it is to do the right thing, if we are on a strict diet and we belly up to a buffet with lots of all the wrong stuff, while we are famished. Why do we put ourselves in tempting situations when we are weak?

I could go on and on with examples, but my point is that long term good benefits are usually better than the short term consequences of doing what we should, even though sometimes the "long term" part is only 20 minutes. Yet I'm still flummoxed. I just don't understand myself as to why I don't do what is best for me. Only part of it is instant gratification. Yet perhaps if results were tragically instant, such as when Uzzah reached out his hand to steady the ark at Nachon's threshing floor in Samuel 6:6; or in Numbers 21:6 where God sent snakes among them and they needed to look to the golden snake in order to live. What a good example for us to walk with my eyes trustingly on Jesus instead of thinking about, or looking upon other things as well as looking to Him for life eternal. O how I look forward to when I shed this flesh and when all of us can bask in the light of God forever!