It’s a fair question. Being – and staying – healthy requires a bit of work…or at least consciousness. Why bother?
What if I asked you this instead:
What do you want to do this year? Next year? Five years from now? TEN years from now?
Do you want to run a marathon? Travel the world? Be at your kid’s graduation? Carry your groceries up the stairs unassisted? Ride a horse? Walk the dog? Get promoted? Start your own business? Go for a walk in a redwood forest? Sit on the porch on a perfect summer day with a good glass of wine and dear friends, laughing hysterically at the experiences you’ve shared?
Okay then.
So…now…why be healthy?
The way I see it, health is just a means to an end. People obsessed with being healthy for the sake of being healthy make me a little nuts. You know the type..the ones for whom eating the “healthiest” food, losing the most weight, finishing the most athletic events, looking like an Adonis (or Aphrodite), trying the most recent “diet” becomes an all-consuming pursuit of perfection. I think they’re missing the point.
For me, the point is experiences. I want to have EXPERIENCES – both profound and commonplace – for a very long time to come. Travel. Great food. Great friends. Love. Belly laughs. Warm baths. Cozy beds. Awe-inspiring views. Intense moments of achievement. Quiet moments of connection. Exploration, wherever and in whatever form it takes me. To do that, though, I kinda need to be out and about in the world, not lying in bed with a cold or, worse, with a cranky and over-exhausted body that poops out on me because I don’t take good care of it.
What about you? Why do YOU want to be healthy? Tell me in the comments.
