Murray Smith
Our culture’s fixation with physical health, diet, nutrition and fitness has assumed such priority. Fair enough, if it’s kept in balance. A massive industry with ‘influencers’ and gurus has emerged expounding lists of things claimed as essentials for wellbeing…some of it’s helpful, yet to me it’s glaringly incomplete.
Debate has been around forever about what really ensures health, wellbeing and longevity, with theories frequently being contradictory.
An English pensioner, Dorothy Howe, reached her 100th birthday, despite her love of alcohol and smoking half a million cigarettes during her life.
“Whisky and 15 cigarettes a day is the secret of my good health,” proclaimed Dot when she celebrated her 100th birthday a while ago. Her dodgy formula (from a medical point of view), for health and vitality, was also hugely expensive. This retired secretary took her first drag at 16 and puffed her way through 15 ciggies every day since then – smoking nearly half a million cigarettes during her life. That’s around 460,000 cigarettes over the last 84 years – costing over $NZ900,000 at today’s prices.
Dorothy’s health ‘advice’ totally flies in the face of medical consensus so her becoming a major international influencer was unlikely. It’s scientifically compelling that abusing our bodies, doesn’t deliver great outcomes.
There’s considerable anecdotal evidence indicating that staying busy and engaged with doing stuff that produces a sense of purpose is essential for a healthy and long life. Stories abound of people who had worked hard then ‘retired’ – only to fade away.
I read about a high-flyer in the finance industry who was at the top of his game after four decades. He had everything he needed and looked forward to relaxing, gardening and playing golf. Within months, concerned friends expressed dismay that he’d lost his purpose. All that self-directed focus had gone, along with the motivation to even get up in the morning – the challenge, that kept him functioning had gone. I’ve heard it expressed that retirement is deadly for the mind.
Taking it easy and cruising through life is detrimental because, put simply – God designed us to be purposeful. Right there is one of those intangible aspects of ‘health’ that you rarely hear doctors mention. Yet studies prove conclusively that without a strong life purpose, the risk of dying early, dramatically increases.
It’s the overlooked reason why I stated that the loud messages from the health, fitness and wellbeing industry are incomplete in my view. People with a large purpose are persistent, tenacious and unwilling to quit. They are much harder to beat down than the average person.
Jesus walked along a lakeside once and encountered fisherman operating a family business. With a few words, He radically changed their lives – “follow me, and I will turn you into fishers of people!”. They became His disciples, with new ideals and goals that were ‘others’ centred – a higher purpose with eternal perspective, possessed them to literally give their lives for the cause.
History records they “turned their world upside down.” Like them, to live for a cause we’re willing to die for, may sound extreme – yet that’s actually how we‘ll find our life.
