Remaining healthy in the 21st century is a Sisyphean task—the second we stop pushing that giant stone ball up the hill, it roles right back down leaving us at square one. While remaining healthy is always a challenge, we live in a society controlled by large corporations and political groups that consistently pull the levers behind the curtain to inform us of our major issues (or even promote them), issues that can only be resolved by buying more of their products, supporting their groups, downloading the latest app, or following the latest “influencer” who coincidentally always seems to push some products or trendy diet. Worse yet, many societal and cultural stop gaps that kept us in check have been called passe and removed.
Yet, the results of this consumerism-driven society have repeatedly shown us that being healthy requires a lot more than following some vague or fashionable diet, and we can’t consume our way out of bad habits. Putting us and our health first requires a lot more than putting on some trendy outfit or toting around a Lulu Lemon bag on the way to yoga. Smoothies, super foods, journaling, and meditation apps won’t do it either. These superficial attempts may be a product of the desire to be healthy, but we have to dig a lot deeper if we want to be successful. First and foremost, we must care.
And a realization of just how much we have to care to remain healthy sheds light on the reality that all things in life that are worthwhile are Sisyphean tasks. That’s the rub, or exciting part depending on how you view it. We love our kids, but parenting them requires an immense amount of nonstop effort and a constant ride on an emotional roller coaster. We love our spouses, yet fostering a good relationship with them takes an incredible amount of unending work and compromise. We tend gardens, which requires daily assessment, watering, pruning, and weeding. The list goes on and on for those elements of life that make it worthwhile; they all require an immense amount of caring.
Our health is no different. In fact, our health may be most difficult because it requires caring while nobody is looking and constant bucking of the invisible hand of a consumerist society obsessed with politics and a raging, roaring “healthcare” machine. This society constantly pushes us to overdo it on the regular and then be “saved” by consuming its products, a major one being medicine.
When we boil down to it, our health absolutely requires (in order):
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Caring: Caring enough to want to maximize our health and be our best
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Thinking: Critically thinking about ourselves, our actions, the environment around us, and how to grow
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Action: Actually carrying out the necessities
Without these three, games of back and forth, yoyo-ing diets, New Years resolutions, and other silly attempts to achieve health lead to a series of frustrating and unsuccessful superficial attempts to overshadow the core issue, a lack of guiding principles. No overpriced pair of plastic stretch pants will overcome a lack of caring, critically assessing oneself, and taking action. In fact, more often than naught, over-consuming will only serve to fuel the underlying issues, which, when addressed, obviate the need of attempting to consume our unhealthy problems away.
As a side note, we oftentimes confuse motivation with caring—we can be motivated in many different ways. For example, we may be motivated to clean the yard, motivated to be good parents, and motivated to get to the gym. But deep down inside, do we care? Motivation is kerosene that gets dumped on the fire of caring, but that initial flame must already be ignited. The former fuels all sources of the latter. When, deep down inside, we care, actions and a lifestyle to improve our health naturally precipitate; motivation to cook, eat well, remain active, lift heavy weights, ignore those around us that want to derail our health to feed their inner demons, get quality sleep, and put down our “digital cigarettes” (devices) no longer are a task, but rather a normal and enriching part of our day. When we care, the questions change from how do I get 8 hours a sleep a night, to why wouldn’t I get 8 hours of sleep a night?
Things that were once excuses—but I have work, my kids get in the way, etc. etc—only fuel us to push harder and be healthier. Children push us to be healthier to be better parents, we work around our job, or within it, to maximize our health. When stressed, we dig down deeper within to ensure we fuel our health. This is when we mastered a life of health and accomplishment, prior excuses now strengthen our conviction and further reiterate the importance of a healthy lifestyle that respects our body, soul, and mind. This is what caring fuels and then becomes reality by constant critical thinking and action.
How can you pass on the cookies sitting on the table in the break room becomes why would I ever torture myself with those cookies or purposefully feed my body something that will make it look, feel, and function terribly. The infinite game of caring trumps all the silly finite games that monopolize so much of our time. When we care and critically think, it becomes much easier to excuse ourselves from the silliness (i.e. our action). We begin to enjoy pushing that ball up the hill constantly, the Sisyphean task becomes the fulfilling task as it exercises our mind and body.
If we aim to be healthy and feel and function our best—and I would argue live a fulfilling life—caring, thinking, and action are required. Otherwise, health turns into a game, and one that we are likely to fail.
Above image by kjpargeter on Freepik
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