Your Health is Your Wealth

Health is not something separate from your life -- but is the summation of all one does and is.  There is no good health in spite of it.  There is good health, and good life, only because of it.

That is to say, that the way one is, is a direct result of what one does -- and not that there is no relationship between one's health and the way one lives it.  People have good lives, because they live good lives -- and have bad lives, because they live bad lives.  People who do bad things to their health, have health problems, and its many complications.

The obvious one is smoking; slightly less obvious, is overeating, and eating bad food choices, and not exercising to keep the body well-conditioned -- so that it can do the many things it might want to do -- instead of always explaining that one can't do that -- which eventually becomes everything.

How is a reasonable person to expect that their quality of life and activities will   be severely impacted and limited -- until finally, one needs an army of caregivers to do everything for them -- because one has long given up doing anything for oneself anymore, and think getting everybody else to do everything for them, is their seniority entitlement.  Those are choices people make to become less competent and able -- just as it is a healthy choice to become more competent and able.  

It is not the same -- whether one chooses to be healthier, or unhealthier.  Such choices matter profoundly, in everything one chooses to do -- in one's life.  It's not just health for health's sake, something only vain and arrogant people do.  It is what every intelligent being does -- choose to enhance their chances for survival, and beyond that, actualizing the greatest life one can live -- as the primary meaning and purpose of their lives.

All one has is a chance -- at life.  There are no guarantees and entitlements of the best life -- but one has a chance at it, and that is as much as one can hope for.  The rest is learning what makes life better, and what makes life worse, and choosing to make it better -- every day of one's life.  As soon as one stops doing that, than there is no reason or hope that things can get better -- because one doesn't no the difference, or care to know.

So things get worse -- and one has long forgotten how to make any difference in their lives -- which is their world.  And so they complain about the world not working -- and not just them -- who they think has no part in it.  They see the many ways to fail -- and no way to succeed.  That is their choice -- the way they see the world, as not working, and only getting worse.  

But obviously, the world is working, or there wouldn't be so many people in the world -- setting world records.  People get better, because it is in their DNA to get better -- unless they choose not to.  They sit on the banks and watch the rest of humanity cross the river because they've decided that they can't go on -- and they don't want to do anything about it.  They've lost the will to change.  They now demand that the whole world change for them.

Beginning Life All Over Again

It doesn't happen every day that one can begin life all over again -- which one should welcome rather than dread, and fear.  That is probably the great wisdom of life -- that one can always begin anew -- but only by dying to the old, and being reborn in the new.  We know that other forms of life make this metamorphosis -- to fully actualize their existences.

Probably one of the great distinctions of human life, is that we can do it often -- as many times as we choose to -- when we choose to embrace the wholly new.  Some people make a lifestyle of change, and adapting to change, while others will have an unbroken continuity of repeating the same patterns every year of their life -- and not think that it could ever be different.

They will think that life where they are is perfect, or paradise -- requiring no change forevermore -- which is not how we got here, or can ever expect to stay the same.  People don't change because they want to; they change because they have to -- for their continued viability and fullest Otherwise, they deteriorate and die, and refuse to change anymore, despite their present course not working.  That's why people grow old.  They make a critical decision, and refuse to change forevermore -- that kills them.

The obvious ones are the addictions that speed their decline and self-destruction.  Less obvious are the lifestyle habits -- of excessive consumption of what would ordinarily be healthful in moderation -- as eating, resting, thoughtful risk-taking.  

The milestones for a new beginning, are the rites of passages -- into adulthood, maturity and then seniority.  Those are the well-recognized opportunities for beginning life all over again -- that a few take full advantage of, while most refuse to make the leap.   They do not go on -- but fall by the wayside, to watch those who go on -- trek on to the promised land.

That is the story that has been repeated by every people -- since time immemorial. That is the history and evolution of humankind.  It is also the story of individuals -- and the difference they make in their own lives -- that changes the world.  It's not an abstraction or generalization, but the fact of every life, and what gives it meaning and significance -- the real choices people make and actualize.  That's what makes their life.

That is the significance of "retirement," that many dread -- thinking that it is just the continuation of the life they have lived up to now, but with less money.  However, they should have learned by then, how to live on less money -- as the wisdom of their lives, rather than as many still think, that they simply need more money -- and that they'll never have enough, because it is the thinking that makes it so, all things being equal.

That is how one knows one has grown wiser, and not just older; the wiser negates the older, and failing to do so, is what ages people.  That is the indisputable truth.  People who grow wiser, don't grow older -- but because they don't grow wiser, have to grow older.  Older and obsolescence doesn't just happen; it happens because we fail to grow wiser.  That is the hard truth to swallow -- and so we prefer to believe that growing old is inevitable.  We obviously, have not solved the right problem -- rightly.

The solution to a problem, is not the problem -- but the elimination of it -- totally.  Then one can move on -- rather than solve the same old problem, as the great nemesis of one's existence.  That is just the continuation of the old, and not beginning life wholly, freshly new -- because one realizes a much better life is possible that way.

Why Running is Overrated

Healthier people are more likely to run than unhealthier people.

But as many people point out, it wreaks havoc on one's knees, feet, back -- and so most people don't run anymore -- particularly as they get older and more out of shape.

The geniuses at the high school physical education departments of the world, would be doing something much more worthwhile and valuable creating/describing movements that everyone can do without causing the injuries, deterioration and pain that tells most people not to do something -- with good reason.

Just turning the head 360 degrees left and right -- for 5 minutes standing or seated, would activate all the muscles of the body and keep one in that condition and proficiency all one's life, rather than produce the graveyard of knees, feet, backs that precludes one from meaningful, healthful movements anymore -- because they injure themselves in that way, but are convinced by the "experts" that those are the only movements that matter -- as if they mattered.

The UPS driver needs that skill at turning one's head and knowing conditions all around him to act safely -- rather than he needs to carry a package for 5 minutes to deliver to the next carrier along the route. 

Humans are an  information-gathering/processing animal, and not one reliant on brute force/strength or ruthless competitiveness for survival.  More often than not, problems solve themselves just in taking in enough information to know what is going on -- at which point, one only needs to contribute a little bit of effort to that understanding and awareness -- rather than invent the wheel entirely with only their own efforts.

That is not an effective or productive way for a human to be -- reinventing everything from scratch -- without that awareness of what already exists -- and leveraging that understanding with readily-available tools.  One of the great inventions, is the chair -- for which many things can serve that purpose, and so one doesn't need to build a chair every time one wants to sit -- for the purpose usually, of sparing their knees, feet, back and hips from unnecessary wear and tear -- so that one has those capabilities ready when actually needed.

That is what humans are doing -- preparing and building the reserves so that they have them when they might actually need them -- and not just burning as much calories, time, energy and resources -- because they have no idea of what else to do, and think that alone is enough.

Let's move health reporting out of the Stone Age.