Don’t Bore Me with the Details, Just Tell Me What I Need

 

About four weeks into one of the classes I was teaching, a person in the back raised their hand and said, “Just tell me what I need to take”. That stopped me for a moment as I quickly pondered that statement. Some options immediately formed in my head. Option one: I could give them a boiler plate answer like, “Take this and this and this and you will be feeling better”. That’s like the doctor saying, “Take two aspirin and call me tomorrow”. Without filling out some health questionnaires, how am I supposed to know? THERE ARE NO MAGIC BULLETS. Option two: If this is the depth of learning in this class, why bother teaching it. I know that there were those who really were there to take charge of their health by learning all they could about their body. In  society today, which is composed of fast internet, fast food, fast talking, fast moving, and drawing fast conclusions, to take time to learn the basics, is not within their realm of understanding. Why take 10 to 16 weeks of studying, when they thought I could tell them in five minutes what to take. I guess they think I’m psychic. Option three: I could continue the course and gently let them know that a proper foundation is necessary to understanding the reasons behind why I am saying what I am saying.

 

When person goes to a doctor, the doctor tells the patient what is needed, but not always why it is needed. The patient relies on the doctor’s knowledge that he knows what he is talking about. “If the doc said it, it must be OK or else he would not have recommended it.” “Don’t bore me with the details”. Is the word “bore” a synonym for, “I don’t have time to understand or I don’t have the capability to understand?” Enough said.

 

Optimum health is a day by day way of life; moment by moment decisions on everything that affects your life. In your educational life, you did not start one year in the first grade and the next year in the fifth grade. You would have been totally overwhelmed. The same holds true for health education; line upon line and precept upon precept. All of life is built upon the bricks laid yesterday. What tomorrow brings is known by how straight and strong the bricks were laid. We as humans have the ability to be very short or long sighted. If we are short sighted about our careers, we may not end up where we dreamed of going. If we are short sighted about our health, we may not live long or have a healthy life. If we are short sighted about finances, we become like the grasshopper, who fiddled his summer away while the ant worked hard to build up a supply of food for the winter. Payment will come due for the type of lifestyle you live and it may come quicker than you think.

 

If you were given one car (not of your choice) to last your entire lifetime, how would you take care of it? Would you get out the owner’s manual (what’s that, lol) and actually read it from cover to cover?

Would you get in the car and start pushing, pulling, and turning all the knobs and buttons to see what they would do? I think we call that learning by trial and error. We all know that is a very poor way to learn. Most of you would treat your new car like a newborn baby, which has no scratches, smudges, no mud on the carpet or spilt oil on the engine. But, familiarity brings contempt to all. In time you lessen your attention because other “new” things have taken its’ place. The once new car is still running OK without all that original attention. But as time goes by you start to notice that a tire is low, a little oil drips under the car, it starts a little harder, the finish is not as shiny, but it still gets you from point “A” to point “B”. This is how degenerative diseases get a foothold in your body. They did not start there in the beginning, but like the car, lack of regular maintenance, slowly over time caused the body (car) not to perform to the manufacture’s specifications. We learn to “deal” with these conditions because, after all “we are getting old”. Scientists state that our bodies are made to last at least 110 years. Anything short of that is a lost life. We are all going to die, but we don’t have to die sick or spend the latter years with a lessening of a quality life style. I know some will say that I am wrong with that statement but how do we know unless we try to reverse what society tells us. There are people who live to be 130 years old and die of natural causes. The choice is yours, are you up to the challenge?