True Wealth

In the last couple of weeks I've been going back and forth to the hospital (mainly to visit sick members of the family who had to undergo various medical procedures) with a frequency that is making me ponder about the value of life and whether when it comes to making the most of it, we've actually got our priorities wrong.

So what are normally our priorities in life? The things that come under our definition of success and happiness? Depending on one's age and stage in life, not to mention the demands of our families, community and society, for most of us our pursuit of happiness usually range from acquiring a certain amount of wealth, to achieving a desired status, and raising children that would hopefully also attain a desirable level of success and wealth.

Of course if we're somewhat religious, we would also ensure that we devote a certain amount of spiritual investment to guarantee us a comfortable place in the afterlife.

In the whole process of studying, working, striving and competing, where does our body come into it? When we're hale and hearty, what sort of investment do we make for it? Perhaps as we get older we buy some sort of insurance just in case something happens. But overall, how much time in our lives do we actually spend attending, listening and communicating with our body?

One only has to see the number of people who, as they rise in rank, status or power, pay less and less attention to their physical well being. If anything their girth seems to expand with their growing responsibility and higher social status.

Moreover, a more prosperous lifestyle and better education do not necessarily denote a better understanding of the workings of their bodies nor a common understanding of their nutritional needs.

The rise in obesity and in type 2 diabetes including in the young and other lifestyle and diet-related diseases are testimony to a widening gap between our mental aspirations and our physical needs. It is as if in the process of chasing our dreams we become a careless driver in a vehicle that we don't consider our own.

As a matter of fact, we probably feel a greater love for our material possessions than we do for our selves. We pay more attention to the welfare of our cars and houses than we do to out own physical health. For instance we ensure that our car is well maintained, regularly tuned, insured for possible damages and given the best fuel.

As for our house, we take great pride in it, decorating it, spending enormous amount of money to make it our pride and joy and the envy of others, as if the house is an extension of our own being, a reflection of who we are.

So where does that leave our bodies - the intelligent being that has kept us going throughout our lives and had put up with all the abuses and stresses that we constantly subject them to almost everyday we've occupied it?

Except for the health conscious few. Most of is go through existence without any sense of awareness, knowledge or interest about their bodies or how they function. Until the day something goes terribly wrong. Even then they leave the matter to someone else to take care: the doctor.

The doctor however, can only cure the disease but cannot make us whole again unless we too take part in our own healing. In my experience, the more aware we are of our body, the more we understand how it works and the more in tune we are to what it needs.
For that we need to start learning about how the body functions and listen to it when it speaks.

And the body speaks to us all the time and in various ways. Sometimes with gentle reminders, others as strong warnings, and everytime nudging us to do something about it.

A headache is not a natural state of being, to be ignored, suppressed or accepted as part of one's disposition. It is the body telling us that something is amiss. Similarly an ache here or there, a pain, however mild, an itch, a rash, a sensation, these are all messages that the body gives us and expects us to respond - perhaps with a check up, a change of diet, a giving up of bad habit.

While people would take great care that dirt and dust do not accumulate in their house, they don't think twice about allowing toxins, poisons and detritus to enter their own bodies in the forms of junk food, cigarette smoke, processed foods plus stresses and all sorts of negative thoughts and emotions - toxins that they ingest day in day out until the body is no longer able to fight them off and succumb.

I have seen so many people who only realize they have a body when they suddenly fall ill or when the body ceases to function in the same way that it used to. And they wonder why what had gone wrong.

It is only when we lie prone on our backs, helpless and alone in our pain and vulnerability, do we then realize where the real value of our life lies and the meaning of true wealth.