Making healthy choices is about how it makes you feel right now
I was talking to a friend (Steve) yesterday and he informed me that the father of a common friend of ours had recently passed away at the age of 70.
I'd like to provide you with some background on the deceased fellow. He was an avid runner right up until he was diagnosed with late stage pancreatic cancer. He ate impeccably, he and his wife shared 35 years of marriage, he was quite well off financially, a non smoker, and as far as I could tell; he was quite a happy man.
I was talking to a friend (Steve) yesterday and he informed me that the father of a common friend of ours had recently passed away at the age of 70.
I'd like to provide you with some background on the deceased fellow. He was an avid runner right up until he was diagnosed with late stage pancreatic cancer. He ate impeccably, he and his wife shared 35 years of marriage, he was quite well off financially, a non smoker, and as far as I could tell; he was quite a happy man.
Steve remarked that it seemed like such a waste of time to take such good care of yourself and to inevitably be taken by cancer at what by today's standards; is not a very old age.
I could see Steve's point, if improved longevity and prevention of illness were the only reasons one takes care of themselves. I asked Steve if he was willing to try and see it from another perspective.
I introduced the idea that perhaps making healthy choices is about how it makes you feel right now.
I mentioned to Steve that practicing a healthier lifestyle with the expectation that it will reward you with longer life and freedom from illness is self deceptive. A human body in all its great complexity is an organism that can fail like any other. Practicing healthy living is a choice that provides no guarantees.
The only guarantee you have is the quality of the experience of this very present moment. At this moment you can either be proud of whom you are shaping yourself to be, or you can be regretful and disrespectful to this great gift nature as given you.
I reminded Steve of someone like Terry Fox, who didn't run across the country because he thought it would make him healthier or live longer. He found strength in purpose and clearly understood that harnessing the innate resources of a respected body can allow one to do great things.
Perhaps the reward for taking care of ourselves is that you'll have lived with the peace of having a respectful loving relationship with the one you are closest to; YOU.
