As a nurse, I constantly witness profound complacency where people’s health is concerned. Regardless of their health problems, regardless of what their blood labs are telling them, they continue on their merry way into the abyss. I believe that they think that they will just “enjoy” their lives until they get sick and then the doctor can fix them. Sometimes, I believe they think that they will continue on with their bad habits until they get sick and then THEY will fix it. The problem with both of these ideas is simply that we truly are wondrously made. We’re tough. If we abuse our bodies to the point of illness, it may be that NOBODY can fix it. Did you know that there is only X amount of insulin that will work for you once you develop diabetes? It’s true. You cannot “just take a little more” indefinitely. It will quit working and when it does, you die. While this is over-simplified, it’s true. Obesity places a massive burden on the circulatory system. While choosing to lose weight at any time is good, heart disease may develop under the radar and go unnoticed until you develop serious complications and wake up in the ER. A stroke brought about by high blood pressure because you haven’t managed your weight and stress properly can kill you quickly, way before you can “fix it”. Complacency kills. If you want to be healthy, get up and do something about it today.
It is no longer rare for Type 2 diabetes to develop in the teen years and younger, now it is actually common for it to develop between 19 and 40 years of age. Children are developing Type 2 diabetes at an alarming rate. I have witnessed a phenomenon among our young people. There are many who seem to be rebelling against anything healthy. I believe that there has been some neglect in our society in teaching health to our young. When I was a child we had a course named “Health”. It was a part of our curriculum that started in grammar school and ran through junior high. It was a mandatory. Nowadays, there is an elective called “Health” that is usually taken for one year. The course that we had was not sex education. It was a course that taught the basics about staying healthy. It taught us to eat well-balanced meals, sleep eight hours per night and get some exercise. It taught us to bathe and brush our teeth and other basic life skills. Why did this course become an elective? I believe that we are seeing the result of this in our young people today. Health has become an elective, a mere suggestion.
Complacency is psychological inertia, you know, “a body at rest (or in motion) tends to remain at rest (or in motion). A more secular definition is “a tendency to do nothing”. The problem is, when we just go along with the natural tendency to do what is the easiest, we deteriorate. Breaking out of inertia requires energy and most of us avoid that. Our bodies are finely tuned machines that accomplish profound biological processes at incredible speeds to keep us alive and we must treat them like the high-performance machines that they are or they will be scrapped. There are ways to break this cycle.
1-Accept that today is a new beginning. Do not wallow in past failures. They are irrelevant. The only difference in a success and a failure is that the success got up and started over one more time.
2- Embrace the importance of being healthy. This is your life that we’re talking about here. It’s not an elective or a suggestion. Without good health you will lose your life much sooner and the quality of your life will be poor. Choose to enjoy a more satisfying life longer. It is almost always a choice.
3-Make an unbreakable commitment to yourself. It is easier to comply with your commitment 100% of the time than 98% of the time. If we allow small deviations in our health program they will grow. If you decide to avoid sugar, avoid sugar. If you decide to work out, do it. Don’t look for excuses to “cheat”. Do you really want to “cheat” on yourself? Make health your first priority.
4-Understand that time is limited. We have a limited amount and you will eventually run out of time. “Strike while the iron is hot.” is good advice and the iron is hot today.
5-BE CONSISTENT. While I have struggled with being fit and healthy most of my life, when I began living David’s Way, I began to understand the power of consistency. There will be events that alter our activities but act immediately to continue the consistency of your program. If you are stuck in traffic so long that you miss your workout today then make sure that you don’t miss it tomorrow. If you work out 4 days per week then there are three other days that you can get that workout in if you want to do it. Do it. Strive to comply, not to avoid the mandates of your program.
I challenge you today, this first day of the New Year to commit to your health. Go all in and just see what you can accomplish in 2020. You just might be amazed.