Your Health Is Your Biggest Investment

Why aren’t we treating our health as an investment?

That’s pretty easy, actually. We, as human beings, are hard-wired to look for the path of least resistence to maximise pleasure. We are not hard-wired to think about the consequences of a heavy sugar intake after a few days, let alone years, after consumption. This is because of the fact that back when our survival instincts formed, sugar, for example, was not abundant, and the average human being took as much in as possible. No one knew how long it would be, before the next source of sugar came along. It makes logical sense too. It was a game of survival back then. If anyone stopped to think about an ‘investment’, nature treated him or her brutally. It was simply counter-productive to ‘think’ before acting.

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Why should we treat our health as an investment?

Times have changed, and so has the nature of an average human being’s life now. In the previous section, I had considered sugar as an example. But in current reality, consumption abuse can be applied to every aspect of our health. The following are just some examples, to name a few: fast-food, social media, television, youtube, porn, gambling, alcohol, drugs, etc. I hope you see the common string between these cases. Every single one of these entities was born as a result of the human desire to seek pleasure..short term pleasure. And now, it’s turning against us. In most cases, a person doesn’t even realise that he or she is addicted to something unless confronted. There are several good reasons for this. One of them, as it turns out, is that major corporations (which includes the food and advertisement industries) have designed themselves to appeal to the human desire to seek immediate pleasure. All these organisations are as human as we are. That means that we are working against ourselves. The one way out of this wretched battle that I could figure out was to stop and think. And we usually need a reason to think. That reason could be our investment in our own health. We (at least the ones privileged to read this post) do not live in an age where we are uncertain about our next dopamine hit. We have access to many forms of stimulation. That is precicely the most paramount reason that we should think, and treat our health as our investment.

How should you begin?

I found just stopping dead in my tracks, and thinking about what I’m doing to be the most powerful form of realisation. Am I perfect? No. Am I susceptible to poor habits? I am; probably as much as you are. But stopping and thinking, more precisely, evaulating the possible future consequences of each of my actions make a huge difference. So this would be a good place to start that I can recommend to you.

Don’t overdo it!

Aha! This, again, comes from my personal experience. The most of us wouldn’t enjoy a saint’s life. Rigorous discipline against one’s fundamental will leads to counter-productive stress. Therefore, one shouldn’t force oneself to do something. One would rather do far better by reasoning with himself or herself in an honest, and fair way. This means that sometimes, it would be fair for us to enjoy short term pleasures, provided that our ultimate investment in our health remains safe. This technique is no gimmick; it’s not even mine. I picked it up from Carl Gustav Jung, the legendary Psychoanalyst.

The choice is yours!

You may be the sort of person who is convinced by the points made in this post. Or, you may be the person who likes to live life in the moment; the sort who likes to live as if there is no tomorrow. As with anything, the choice is completely yours. I hope that you are prepared for the consequences, either way. This post is just my effort to stimulate your thoughts about the range of possible choices that we all have when it comes to our health. We are not mere victims. My choice matters. Your choice matters. Our choice matters!

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