By now we’ve all come face to face with the importance of health. The year 2020 has singlehandedly delivered the most monumental wakeup call on this facet of our existence since the 20th century began. It’s not about that degree, that job, that girl/guy you can’t live without, it’s about HEALTH. And if you don’t have that, you have nothing. Because, hello, what is that title, that money, or that person worth to you if your health is challenged or failing? Your health IS the most important thing you can aspire to improve on and achieve in this life. Here are just a few reasons why:
1. You’re dying a little more today than you were yesterday.
From the moment we’re born we are continually experiencing physiological changes driven by a cycle of birth and death on a cellular level. Thankfully, we have some incredible regenerative systems set up to slow down this process. But here’s the catch. Every time a new generation of cells is birthed it’s gathering its resources from the inputs provided to it, and in turn getting a bit weaker than the previous generation with the added effect of the law of aging. It’s fascinatingly fitting that when one is born and going through childhood and adolescents their health and vitality are at their peak, resilience is remarkable, healing is swift and strong, and seemingly happening regardless of what the dietary habits are. Food and nourishment are usually supplied by mature sources such as parents or guardians who might not know any better, releasing the younger individual from direct responsibility of dietary choices with the benefits of their innate bodily resilience. But once an individual is grown up, independent, and resourceful themselves they are now responsible for nourishing their own systems, at the very time where their physical stamina begins to stabilize and even decline. Now as an adult the individual’s health is dependent upon their own choices. Recognizing this responsibility as one of the fundamental missions of your life will play a huge role in protecting you as you continue to mature and age. If you can read and understand this, you’re ready to take things seriously.
2. Most doctors are trained to manage health problems, not fix them.
This is what you’d call the ugly truth. Although there are many well-meaning and proficient physicians actively engaged in restoring health to their patients, the fact is the system housing the majority of health care professionals is not designed to address and reverse chronic disease, the system is designed to manage them, usually with drugs or unsustainable protocols. As a disclaimer, most chronic diseases (which include heart disease, diabetes, and obesity, America’s top killers) are largely due to poor lifestyle habits, but there are diseases that are genetic, this article is not referring to that category. For most chronic disease, contemporary medicine is a broken system dependent more on pharmaceuticals than lifestyle change.
Many people fall prey to the mentality that living a healthy lifestyle is too costly. What is costly is living on a ventilator, getting surgery, or being on lifelong medication. One might flatter themselves that their insurance is covering it, but you’re still paying for it with an immensely low quality of life. This mentality causes many to prioritize a higher car payment, a new cell phone, or a Netflix subscription over purchasing clean organic produce that has the most effective “medicinal” properties that has been heavily confirmed by evidenced based research. The most expensive and elusive piece of machinery ever entrusted to us in the form of our own body is remarkably the most misunderstood, undervalued facet of the general public’s understanding. It’s utterly ridiculous that we’ll meticulously watch a YouTube tutorial on how to maintain and care for a Dyson Vacuum to “stretch its longevity”, but we’ll chug down a liter of soda and inhale an In-N-Out burger without an iota of concern as our body is forced to extract what little nutrition exists there amidst the inflammation and insults waged on its life sustaining organs. If ever there was the time to realize this, it is now, WE are the real heroes or villains of our own lives.
3. The things getting in the way of your healthier lifestyle DO NOT matter.
Guess what? No one cares about how much money you have in your account, who you’re dating, how nice your stuff is, how many followers you have on Instagram, or where you get to vacation, it doesn’t matter to anyone. And if it does, you have the wrong people in your life.
These are just a few examples why most people won’t prioritize diet and exercise. Stop wasting time and resources trying to impress people you don’t even like. Invest your time where it matters, and what matters is health. We all want to live long and prosper. But if time is what we’re after then we need to invest time to get more time. We have no problem understanding this from a financial perspective. You need money to invest to make more money. In the same way we need to invest time so that we can have more of it. It takes time to go to the supermarket, to research healthy recipes, to meal prep, to study out what works best for our bodies and what doesn’t, to search for the highest quality organic produce. It takes time to rest and sleep adequately. It takes lots of time to be committed to regular physical activity. There’s dressing up, the exercise session, sweating, showering, laundry, and then repeating this cycle week after week, month after month.
There’s no other way around it, you’ll need to invest, strive, and push your way to health and vitality. Obey these laws, honor your physicality with a sacred respect and appreciation that is due it and you will receive the returns that make life worth living in the first place.
To those on the side of the fence arguing that their spiritual lives must be more important than anything, my response is simple and direct respecting, honoring, and properly fueling the entity housing our souls can act as the greatest form of “worship” one could present. Sacrificing natural tendencies, abstaining from indulgences, and bending our desires into subjection to discipline for the sake of a noble, pure, and healthy body, what could be more spiritual than that? What is a soul claiming spiritual connection even mean in an emaciated, drugged, and diseased form?
Without health, everything is nothing.
