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Learning and Sharing |
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| Learning and Sharing --> Health --> Decide to Do Something | ||
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1. DECIDE to do SOMETHING.
At a time when
portions are super sized and lifestyles are stressful but sedentary,
when we expect there’ll always be a pill or a procedure to save us
if something goes wrong, many (if not most) of us don’t do all we
can to keep healthy. We tell ourselves that we (and ours) are still
(relatively) young or When we do take an interest, it seems like there’s so much to know, and it feels like the “right thing” to do is always changing. Market shelves overflow with products boasting health benefits, but who’s to know what’s true? There’s a dozen kinds of bottled water and a hundred vitamin formulas, and is it important to buy organic? In a busy life, finding time to sift through it all is tough. With no pressing deadline, it’s one more thing easily shifted to that handy back burner. Hopefully, not doing much doesn’t matter. Sometimes it does. And though we all (thankfully) know people who’ve survived terrible things, the best prescription is doing enough not to get sick. We felt pretty good about what we were doing to stay healthy at our house until September of 2004. We always thought we were reasonably well informed and careful, but when things went wrong and we had to scramble to learn all we could, we found there was a great deal we didn’t know. To be honest, it amazed us that there’s so much good information that so few people we know seem aware of. What we learned along the way came from nutritionists and doctors, from books and websites published by respected organizations like the American Cancer Society and the National Institute of Health. What we wish is that everyone would take some time, buy a good book or two and study these things for themselves while everyone at their house is still well. What we suspect is that a lot of folks won’t find time now to do that, and we offer this as a small stopgap until they do. Every day that we wake up offers a new opportunity to do better than the day before. What we choose to eat and drink and whether we get enough exercise and rest will, now and increasingly as we grow older, determine how we feel and look. Reading and thinking about what’s important, deciding what we’re willing to do and then following through can (and statistically almost certainly will) make a major difference in the length of our lives---as well as our quality of living. Thinking that we look and feel okay today and waiting to do something until we get sick isn’t as smart as staying healthy from the start. Even if we make just a few changes, now is the best time to begin.
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