Be Healthy!
What a great idea!
But what does it take to be healthy?
And what does healthy look like?
Some are said to be the picture of health. But that doesn’t really help too much, does it?
Whose picture?
Yours?
Mine?
Some random other’s we find in a magazine?
And let’s not stop at pictures. What about healthy sayings? The sayings that tell us what it’s like to be healthy.
On the extremely healthy end of the spectrum-of-health we encounter the following:
Healthy as a horse.
Strong as an ox.
Fit as a fiddle.
Right as rain.
Fresh as a daisy.
Alive and kicking. (So we can kick the habit? And and thereby presumably postpone kicking
the bucket?).
Full of beans (Beans, beans the musical fruit, the more you eat . . . And who doesn’t want to
feel better?)
And somewhere beyond the middle of the spectrum-of-health we find these gems:
Frog in your throat.
Under the weather.
Sick as a dog.
White as a sheet.
Run down.
A pain in the neck (or other parts south).
Weak in the knees.
And finally, we arrive at the other extreme.
As our health dwindles, as it ultimately must, so, too, does our list:
On your last legs.
One foot in the grave.
At death’s door.
Kick the bucket (It was bound to happen).
Pushing up daisies. (Maybe that’s why they’re fresh.)
So should we then. . .
Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die?
I cannot answer that for you. Maybe we should. Maybe we should not. It depends a lot upon how you eat and how you drink and how you make merry, doesn't it?
And to be honest, in 300 to 500 words, what can I really tell you about being healthy that hasn’t already been extensively covered in books, blogs, and magazines the world around?
What I can tell you with confidence is that abiding health is not found at either extreme. Health is found somewhere near the middle. And just to be clear, your middle may not be my middle, and my middle may not be other’s middle. And it may also depend upon whether you want to look like a horse or an ox, or a fiddle or a daisy. Nonetheless, “somewhere near the middle” for each of us can
be summed up in these eight words:
Eat well.
Think well.
Move well.
Love well.
And these eight words can be distilled to one.
Balance!
That’s what it takes to be healthy.