Day 3: My Greatest Challenge

Day 3: My Greatest Challenge

What I don’t understand is why our education system spends more time teaching us irrelevant things than it does teaching us things we need and use every day. What do I mean? Basic life skills. I mean, things like communication and relationship skills, financial management, emotional intelligence, how to maintain a healthy body, and the like.  Take a look around, you don’t have to look far. The evidence of a failing system is all around. I mean seriously, do I care what the value of pie is? Unless it’s edible, not really.

So what does that have to do with my greatest challenge? Everything. I believe that education is the key to making informed decisions, and I wish someone would have taught me about the things that truly matter sooner. Without proper education, we don’t even know that we are not choosing what we should.

Huh?

Case in point -take our health for example. I bet you learned all the scientific stuff - the technical terms for different parts of the body, how the body functions, and the four major food groups. I also bet it went in one ear and out the other. Am I right? Thought so. So why is it that no one told us the value of health, how to actually achieve it, and then how to maintain it? Or is it just me that was never taught? Possibly, but I don’t think so. Sounds silly that we need to be taught how to eat and drink properly…the very basics of human survival. Fortunately though, there are those among us who have taken the initiative to educate themselves and then inform others. At a time when I needed health the most, I was lucky enough to stumble across some really invaluable information. I guess the saying is true, when the student is ready, the teacher appears.

So what did I learn? That THE most important thing in life is our health. Why? Because the quality of our health is what makes it possible to enjoy all other things that we strive for…INCLUDING attracting Mr. Right. Think about it. What good is money, relationships, career, etc. if you are not healthy enough to enjoy it? And what’s the one thing that most older people tell you they wish they had? Health. To understand its true value, ask someone who doesn’t have it, and ask them what they would give to have it back. The sad truth is that we take for granted what we do have until we no longer have it. Unfortunately, that was me. The value of my health didn’t even register in my mind until three months ago when I realized I no longer had it. My battery was low and I was running on empty. And it’s not like it happened overnight either, it’s been creeping up on me for years – lack of sleep, stress, major dehydration, not eating properly, digestive problems, low energy, burning the candle at both ends, not enough exercise (ok, so next to none!), et cetera. I was younger, didn’t care, and thought I would have my health forever. So I just never paid any attention to it - call it naivety I guess. Now, however, at the age of 30 my body has changed – noticeably. I’m not as invincible as I once thought I was, and so now spend more of my time and energy trying to regain my health back…which inevitably has led me to this blog.

Now here’s the thing. Health is a BIG topic, and my typical habit is to take on too much all at once and then fail miserably. I’ve done this enough times that I don’t think I need to repeat the lesson. I want to set myself up to succeed, so I’m going to take it slow, and work at this progressively. I figure if I ease into it, I’ll have an easier time accepting the changes and making good habits stick. I’ve done drastic cold turkey before…and it didn’t work all that well. So for those of you reading this who may also be experiencing some health challenges and are perhaps interested in making some changes to your health as well, I’ll be making this program really easy to follow along.

Wouldn’t it be cool if this became a collective thing and we were all living our best and healthiest lives possible? I think so.

Stay tuned tomorrow for what I’m going to tackle first!