No Longer Optional

Most people go through life thinking "health" is optional -- until they run out of options, and health becomes mandatory for their very survival.  Usually, that is the case as they get older -- and have frittered away their chances at "being their best."  People live long lives not by accident and chance, but because they've increased their chances for survival at every point along the way, in everything they do -- better than most.  Attaining old age is no exception -- unlike the many who still believe that is a random achievement, not worthy of any deeper thought and effort.

But increasingly, there is a growing realization that everything we do -- has consequences and effects, so that doing their thing -- whatever they like, determines the quality of life they experience from here on out.  It is merely wishful thinking to believe that they can eat and drink unlimited quantities of delectable foods, attend the most tantalizing and intriguing entertainments, and at the end of the day (life), they will be as fit as they can be -- for the remainder of their lives.  Nothing in nature works that way.

Unfortunately, many will learn that lesson too late to do anything about it -- not that it is ever too late to do something positive and beneficial, but at that stage, they haven't developed the necessary skills to make that difference -- and think nothing makes a difference anymore.  And so they do nothing but wait for their end -- with as much entertainment, diversion, and junk food as they've consumed all their lives -- that put them in such a state and condition.  However, no matter how long it has been that way, it need not continue for another second -- because change is always possible in the present moment -- and from such moments, the future course of their health and lives, can be different, and better -- but not if they simply continue doing what they've always done before.

Getting to that realization, is the tricky point for most, but it is not just a trick of mind -- but the actuality.  The moment one does anything different, is the moment change has been set in motion.  That is unfailingly how the world works -- not that any one person, has the ultimate control over everything.  They just have that ultimate control over their own action -- but already, that is enough to make a difference.  It may not lead to the outcome one desires, but it will be the beginning of change -- and not simply continuing on the course of a disastrous path.

Even the most dysfunctional people recognize that -- so even they desire change, despite their inability to effect those changes.  That requires practice -- the practice of simply doing -- and learning what the outcome will be.  Because one never knows what the outcome will be.  They can simply play the game as though it mattered -- as best they can.  So at the end of the day (life), they know they have given their best -- and that is good enough, all one can do -- and the rest of the universe decides.

That is obviously the larger picture of life -- one hopes to have achieved as their crowning achievement in life.  It is no longer simply about them and their individual, petty struggles -- but about the whole, and how the world is a better place -- not because of them, but because of all.  But that is not achieved by one individual telling everybody else what to do and think, but of understanding what everybody else thinks and does, and making their best contribution to that synergy.  That is the evolution of the 21st century personality and culture.  It is not just the old -- one century older.

When one realizes that, then one is the entirety of life -- and not just a small part of it -- struggling against every other.  The beauty of that is that one can then draw upon the total resources available -- and not just one's ownership of it.  It doesn't matter if one owns it, or merely has access to it -- even if just for a single solitary moment one actually needs it.  That manner of thinking -- is to have total access to all that is known and available -- which is quite an advantage over the old mentality of having to purchase everything exclusively for one's own use.

That led to the concept of sharing -- which can be done with bicycles, cars, even living spaces.  But it can also mean, sharing the roads, sidewalks, information, parking and storage.  That makes all the resources available to all -- and not simply the monopoly of the richest person who can afford them only for themselves.  In this way, the average person of these times, is richer than any king or emperor was in previous times -- when they were the only ones who might have them -- and not everyone, but they have to know about them -- and its availability.

That's what many still do not realize -- that their best health -- is within their own power to achieve and exercise.  They do not have to wait in line to be approved for every latest and greatest finding known to humankind.  It is largely just for the taking -- or cheap enough to be virtually free.  Of course the worthless and fraudulent will always be too much -- for too little, or nothing at all.  That is what one still has to determine, distinguish and discriminate -- and not as they would have us believe, that nothing should be discerned in this manner of effectiveness anymore -- because they will determine that for everybody else -- henceforward, and from here on out -- just like the good ol' days.