If Not Now, When? If Not Me, Who?

“One hot summer afternoon the monastery cook, an elderly monk, was spreading mushrooms on a mat to dry in the sun. A young monk saw him and asked, ‘Why is an old man like you doing such hard work in the heat of the day?’ The old monk replied, ‘If not me, who? If not now, when?’”

-from There’s Nothing Wrong With You by Cheri Huber

The story of the old monk resonated with me, and that is why I am beginning this blog today. I have been working, planning, reading, drafting, and I think I’ve been doing a little more than my share of resisting, but now is the time to begin sharing what I have been learning. Vulnerability has something to do with my delay in getting started, but I am going to use a new approach to all of this. My mission is to share, to help. If I can help someone live a happier, healthier life by what I share on this website, then I am providing something useful.

For the past two years I have been researching how to live a more fulfilling, healthy, and happy life. I don’t have all of the answers, not even close, but I have found some amazing research about how to experience greater health and well-being, and I am excited to share it with as many people as possible.

If not me, then who? What makes me the one to share this information? Well, I have had quite a journey over the past thirty years, and many of those years were filled with illness, both physical and mental in nature. By digging into my past and understanding my own journey, I have learned not only about myself, but about what creates disease and how the mind and body are not two separate entities; rather they are intrinsically tied to each other.

At the age of 26, I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. After having a goiter on my thyroid tested for cancer and finding out it was benign, I felt relieved. My doctors at the VA hospital and on the Air Force base told me to take a simple thyroid hormone replacement pill each morning, and I would be fine. Unfortunately, the Internet was not yet accessible to everyone, and I was still in the stage of my life where I believed everything someone wearing a white coat said to me. In time, that information turned out to be incomplete. There is much more to that story, and I will be telling it soon. For now, I am going to share research-based ways to live a life full of robust physical health and psychological well-being.    

My life has changed so much for the better since changing my diet, understanding the needs of the body, especially the brain, and in working with my mind to expand positive emotions such joy and love. If this blog can bring to even one other person the increase in health and well-being that I have experienced, then I will have achieved my purpose.

I want to leave you with a favorite quote that has driven my philosophy of life since I discovered it,

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.” –Buddha

This quote says to me that in the end we must rely upon our own experience and intuition. Research is a beginning. It tells us what has worked for others. Now we must try it out for ourselves. One caveat, in a world where there is so much information, and misinformation, swirling around, it is important to give something a hearty chance before we decide that it doesn’t work. A good guideline is 30 days. However, those thirty days need to be consecutive. If we try something for a day and drop it for three days, we will not be able to see the true results.

However, if after 30 days we do not see results, then we need to look deeper and search harder. That is what I have done, and my path has been a series of two steps forward and one step back many times.  If I had followed the 30 consecutive days guideline, I think my forward steps would have far outnumbered my backward ones.

Let’s embark on a great journey together. We are all at different places on our own unique path, but we can learn with and from each other.  Won’t you join me?

 

photo credit: Bliss Jizi