A LIfe With No Regrets: My entry into the Natural Medicine WISDOM Challenge

hopehuggs (67)in #naturalmedicine • 5 years ago

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Do we live healthy lives to avoid or postpone death?

That is the challenging question set by Natural Medicine...

Here is a link, where you can enter too: Natural Medicine WISDOM Challenge

But you'll have to be quick as the deadline is the 26th of April.

(Yes, I'm one of those people who leaves things to the last minute hehe)

This is my take...

You Only Live Once

(that always makes me think of James Bond)

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Well, I have to admit that I'm a little bit on the You only live once persuasion, so I’m somewhere on the spectrum between liking junk food and eating healthily.

I don’t go overboard (now) on the junk food because I believe a little of what you fancy is good for you. Everything in moderation.

I also had rules like if I tried a drug and really liked it, I would only do it occasionally, but I smoked cigarettes for 12 years, so it didn’t really work there and chocolate sneaks into my diet quite frequently.

But it worked for the illegal stuff and alcohol, so swings and roundabouts.

A Pre-determined Life?

Although I am of no particular religion, I think that our lives are predetermined and everything that happens to us happens for a reason, even death, so being healthy neither avoids or postpones it, as it is already set in the universe somewhere.

And really you don’t know when that could be.

I have known the healthiest of people to drop dead at 39 and someone who has smoked 50 a day to get to 100.

It is a mix of genetics, fate and things mostly beyond our control, it just is.

Maybe I have this belief or thought set to justify my half healthy life.

I think this question is more accurate...

A Long Life of Discomfort and Exciting Happiness or a Shorter Life of Comfort and Mediocrity?

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I think that the majority of people are happy living a life of comfort, which means that they take the path of least resistance.

This is what society expects of us, and that includes being unhealthy and making lifestyle choices that could put a cap on how long you live, as we want things immediately, we hate to wait or think what it might do to us in the future.

In many cases, these decisions (of which I am also guilty) impact the environment around us.

To me, that's not living.

That is being a zombie and unless you are lucky enough to be doing a job that you love, an unfortunate waste of potential. Too many lives are filled with regrets because it's easier not to and there are too many what ifs.

The world is full of opportunities.

Of course, I'm not saying you should never relax, but challenging yourself means you carry on growing, rather than settling for any less than what makes you happy.

Sometimes it seems that I have this rosy pair of glasses that sees potential where there is none. I want to fix, though uninvited and I’ve since learned it is better to be non-judgmental and to try to be “the change you want to see” by treating people with kindness and thoughtfulness.

Ideally, you need to delve inside, your heart, mind and soul and create the life that you are happy to live, as long as it doesn’t involve hurting anyone intentionally.

We only have one life, and we deserve to make the most of it. And if by doing this we can impact positively on the people or nature around us then I can’t think of a better purpose than that.

Always Remember Our Time is Finite

Our time is finite, we don’t know what might happen in the next 10 minutes, let alone tomorrow, or next week.

I always find this way of representing our lives an eye opener, and sometimes it helps to look at it daily or weekly, as you see those dots be blotted out it reminds you are a day closer to your end destination and ask yourself - did I do what I needed to do today to leave my legacy?

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It would also be a blessing to have more happy days than miserable ones.

After all, we all know death is part of life.

And the best part of life is being alive.

We can’t control a lot of things that happen to us, but we can control our perspectives and choices that arise from those situations.

These experiences build us into the people we are today, and often it is through those experiences we can help others. And for many people, this control (I am making improvements here) is about keeping as healthy as possible, as no-one likes to be ill.

I will leave you this analogy by James Altucher (he is a very inspiring entrepreneur. I love reading his blog and books about choosing yourself)