No Happy Accidents: Health

Daddy once told me, "Son, after you get to be about 55, you'll never be completely comfortable again for the rest of your life!"

I said, "Thanks, Dad! I'm SO glad I have that to look forward to."

Well, I'm 55 now. It's beginning to look as if he was right!

My medical record includes high blood pressure, high cholesterol, one sinus surgery, and the horrible letters MI (myocardial infarction--a heart attack). The doctor's lying scale said 213 when I was there last week. And I can't figure out why the DOT took my picture, but put some fat-faced man's on my license!

When I was 18, I would take my high school sweetheart out on Fridays. We always went to McDonald's, and I always ordered the same thing: three Big Mac's, two large orders of fries, and a chocolate shake. And I weight 135 pounds!

That was nearly 40 years and nearly 80 pounds ago.

A friend claims, in his late teens, to have been able to eat a dozen Krispy Kremes with a gallon of whole milk and never to gain an ounce. I believe him. I also believe he can't do it now!

The doctor said, "When you were 18, your body could process styrofoam if you ate any!"

In what realm of life can do you do whatever you want, as long as you want, whenever you want, with impunity, without paying any price? In what area of your life may you get away without exercising discipline?

There is every possibility that none of the failing health I experience today would ever have been a consideration if at any time I had begun to act as if I'm no longer 18! Discipline, as onerous as it is, would have brought me a significant amount of happiness I do not know today, and would have saved me considerable pain, fear, and expense!

A precious woman I know was diagnosed diabetic several months ago. She is philosophical about it. She says, "It's not unfair. I ate my share of cake and pie and cookies and candies. In fact, I ate several people's share!" She believes she deserved what she got. The good news is, wisely, she has adopted the discipline she should have taken on decades ago, she has lost a lot of weight, she is feeling better than she has in years, looking better, and she is going to live with diabetes "not barely, but TRIUMPHANTLY!"

What I took for granted just a couple of decades ago I now must work for. Well, God blessed me with magnificent good health. Many have died living as I have always lived, much younger than me. It's okay, I'm awake now, I'm paying attention, and I am not going to eat myself to death. I am going to exercise.

At least once a day I recite a list I call my personal Affirmations and Intentions, and, being who I am, I make them a prayer. They are in seven categories: Faith, Family, Fitness, Finance, Firm, Friends, and Fun. The third one, Fitness, goes like this:

"IT IS MY INTENTION to be as healthy, Lord, as you know I can be. I intend for my appetite to MEET, and not to EXCEED, my needs. I intend to find the foods that are best for me increasingly delicious, and the ones that aren't, increasingly cloying. I intend to drink all the water every day that I should. I intend to do some exercise, purely for the sake of exercise, every day. I intend, by my next birthday, for my gut to be gone, my blood pressure and my cholesterol and my resting pulse to be down to where they ought to be."

I've been checking out my family tree. There are an awful lot of people among my direct ancestors who lived well into their 80's and 90's.

I've decided to live to be at least 110. It's going to take discipline and work.

But what good thing in life, what really good thing, every happens without decision, commitment, discipline, and hard work?