What Matters

There is no end to what people can consider to be important -- and relevant, and so one has to determine for themselves, what most matters and makes a difference.

One cannot prepare for all contingencies -- so one must prepare for those outcomes most likely to manifest, as the wisest and most productive use of their time.

That is particularly true for those who could do anything -- because they the have resources and leisure to re-create their lives in whatever fashion they think is important to do so.  That doesn't have to be running a marathon every day -- or the equivalent of it.  No arbitrary measure such as that, has ever been a "requirement" to be fit.  One is "fit" by the challenges and tasks they want to master -- which can be as simple as one's own genetic limitations and defects -- which every individual uniquely has.  It's not the same for everyone.  That should be obvious by now.

Yet daily, we are bombarded by what some "expert" thinks "everyone" must conform to -- even if it is for all to run on a treadmill for at least 30 minutes each day, or to stand up as much as possible -- when doing so, would be intolerable pain and torture for many.  Such experts will insist that everyone can -- from age 7 to 70 -- and beyond.  What of those who can't?  They should at least try -- and failing that, they should try harder -- until they can, the bromide continues.

In that way, one can get all others to do something they would not ordinarily do in a lifetime -- if not so advised they must, and is essential for their well-being -- despite it not addressing the most critical problems of that individual, and in fact causing them.  One doesn't have to throw a ball 100 mph all one's life, or lift the heaviest weight possible at every opportunity as testimony to their fitness, or to survive; one can do things more important and meaningful to do.

In every case, that would be the most intelligent thing one can do -- rather than the most difficult thing one can think of doing -- that they would not do otherwise, if someone didn't convince them that was what they have to do.  Usually, that is simply the fad of the moment -- rather than some great enduring truth -- that their teacher was the first to discover thousands of years ago.

But the truth can always be discovered in the present moment and circumstances -- especially by an unprejudiced mind -- not too full of their own knowledge to consider that any other truth can be known.  For most though, their truth is simply what confirms what they already know -- and so no new information does them any good, but merely strengthens their resistance to knowing any other -- because that is also a part of their conditioning -- and probably the greater part of it.  That dooms them -- rather than makes them more fit to discover the unknown.

And so the first time they do encounter the unknown, they are among the first to perish -- because they have no provision for dealing with the new -- as the new, and not simply a repetition of the old, in a new guise.  That can be a fatal or irrecoverable mistake -- rather than a greater opportunity it presents -- sometimes killing the messenger before learning that they are free -- distrustful of outsiders as they have become.

So the advice that one must do anything only a certain way -- without the presentation of underlying reasons for that choice, and any other alternatives, should be reason for caution and inquiry before proceeding much further -- particularly if they aren't working, for the teachers themselves.  That is usually the first indication, that an idea has merit and some validity.  Otherwise, the morbidly obese, anorexics and atrophied, would know all the ways that do not work to achieve robustness -- rather than always be striving and losing their battles to achieve it.