Mankind shall prevail!

Life is the most difficult game that may possibly exist that humans have the privilege of participating in.  Life is the only game that is continuously changing.  It is a game full of games, continually moving around and within each other, all related to perpetuating our own existence and the existence of our loved ones.  Whether it is a human’s limited sensory perception or God’s will; we can never know what the rules are for certain, when the game will change, when it will be over, and exactly who or what we are up against?  We only know that we have to adapt to survive.

Adaptation is a necessary component in order for a certain organism or group of organisms to become better suited for their habitat.  Some adaptations occur on a biological, evolutionary type of development.  Most adaptations occur simply from learning how our actions result in certain specific outcomes.  Once the organism knows that its action will yield an outcome it can properly navigate its way through the world allowing the optimal chances for survival. 

For human organisms, we can optimally navigate our way towards wellness and away from danger.  Learning is the number one way that we become better suited for our environment.  Our environment is constantly changing however.  Today we may have the most dangerous environment to live in when considering our health.   We no longer have to worry about being attacked by a wild animal while we lay asleep on the ground of a cave.  In most areas of the country the crime rates are low and human predators are virtually non-existent.  Our environment is now, what I consider, the most dangerous of all time because it is deceptive.  We are led to believe that we are in a safe environment that allows us to have our freedom when in reality there are many aspects of our environment that lay just beneath the surface that cause disability, mental illness, and chronic disease states.  

I was recently at a conference in which the real Patch Adams gave a lecture on caring for the medical profession.  He is a medical doctor that does not practice for a salary.  He does everything for free.  His message was that we need to place the care back in healthcare and that we are too focused on the bottom line which is distorting the outcomes of our medical system and the health of our people.  He said that all of the problems we have today such as chronic diseases, mental illness and disability were a normal, natural outcome derived from us living in a spoiled society that is losing its moral compass. 

The beauty is that all we have to do is learn.  Well, first we have to be open to learning.  We are learning new things each day in our lives, it never stops.  For some however, paying attention to and learning about navigating the world in terms of health and wellness has fallen to the wayside as a second class priority.  However, many of these people discover that ignoring a critical component of their life business plan causes significant difficulties instead of living well into their golden years when it is their time to retire.  They see their life begin to crumble around them with more and more frequent trips to the doctor, a medicine cabinet full of chemicals to be ingested to alleviate their awful symptoms of a misguided and misinformed life, and a progressive limitation on their independence and functional capacity.  This pathway only leads us further from enjoying life and towards a life of limitations and suffering.  But there is an answer, there is a solution. 

We can have our cake and eat it too.  When it comes to wellness, all we have to do is be open to learning new ways to look at life.  We have to understand how our bodies work and not completely ignore the truths that are all around us.  We cannot sacrifice the health of our people simply to make money.  The short term riches are not worth the long term pain.  We can however be very wealthy and optimally healthy at the same time.   It takes a long time to earn a good living for most people and unfortunately by the time they are making enough money to come up and take a breath, they’re barely healthy enough to enjoy it.  We simply have to recognize that many of the problems we have today have been derived from indifference, disuse, inactivity, neglect and ultimately beliefs that are incongruent with good health.  We have the ability.  We are humans.  Survival and the pursuit of a better life is our foundation.  We can make a difference in our lives.  We change our outcomes.   We must be consistently open to learning and adapting across our lifespan.