David White, MD
The reality is that life in this world is vulnerable and risky. Think about it. We are inadvertently exposed to infections as we interact with others in this world. We suffer accidental injury whether by tripping, falling from a ladder or being struck by a drunk driver. More insidiously, our cells mutate within us awakening cancerous growth, and on occasion, our own immune system, our front line defense, will even turn and wage war against us causing a myriad of autoimmune maladies.
Many of us have either suffered such things or have walked anxiously with those we love as they have. As an emergency medicine doctor, I have been privileged to enter into these intimate spaces with tens of thousands of individuals and families over a 21-year career. And while I do love entering into that moment of crisis, my years of work have revealed that in a majority of cases, my help should never have been needed. With no intent to minimize the reality of uninvited injury and illness, I want to offer you a plea. I want you to hear that when it comes down to it, your health and your wellness are more about the choices you make than anything else. More than genetics, gender, age, or environment, the choices you make in the moments of your day are the greatest indicator of health and wellness through time. This is an undisputed fact that has been studied and demonstrated over and over in medical science.
Consider the implications of hearing this from an ER doc. Most of the resuscitative work that I am routinely involved in is really an emergency intervention in what is the cumulative effect of a myriad of poor decisions. I can remember the moment when this hit me in a particularly poignant way. I was working in a local ER and was called into a room to care for a patient who was in respiratory distress. I walked in to discover a morbidly obese 65 year old woman. She lay on that ER bed staring desperately into my eyes gasping “help me…help me” as her lungs filled with fluid from a heart that had been burdened too long. She was laying in the bed with the head only slightly elevated and we needed to sit her upright to help ease her breathing. What was so striking was that she retained no capacity within herself to sit herself up because of the overflowing mounds of flesh that consumed her. She couldn’t move; imprisoned in her own body. I found myself surprised by an intense surge of anger within me; not anger at this patient but rather indignant that this did not have to be. I was acutely awakened to how much of what I was addressing was not a rescue from an injustice, but rather a transient interruption in a self-imposed decline.
As you can imagine, I’ve seen this same destructive decline and imprisonment expressed as a debilitating stroke, heart attack, kidney failure, vascular disease, degenerative joint and spine disease; these often found in combination. The most common expression I hear about this decline by patients is that, “It sucks to get old.” Friends, this is a lie. Yes, we will all experience decline over the course of our lives but the reality is that our bodies retain an astonishing capacity to sustain, recover and strengthen over a lifetime.
Dr. Richard Rayner and I founded our practice with a purpose to inspire individuals to ASPIRE to better physical, emotional and spiritual health, connecting people to the purpose and quality that life inherently holds; a purpose and quality that may change over time, but that can be sustained through a lifetime. One of our central themes is that movement, by its very nature, is essential to this. It could even be reasonably argued that movement is essential to a full expression of nearly every element of our lives (spirituality, relationship, vocation, recreation) supporting the premise that to move well is to live well.
This is not to say that individuals with limitations cannot have a fulfilling life, but it is clear that as people gain and maintain strength and efficiency in movement, they are granted freedom to explore new life experiences— in other words, freedom to ‘aspire.’ One of the greatest challenges individuals face, however, is the lack of inspiration. Inspiration is what transforms a mere idea into action. Consider the saying, “An idea [aspiration] without action is merely a dream.” It was Thomas Jefferson who said, “If you want something that you have never had, you must be willing to do something that you’ve never done.” It is inspiration that brings life to aspiration by answering the question, “Are you willing?” with a “Yes I am!”
Well, inspiration can be elusive and our experience is that inspiration is best found and maintained in community. It was Steve Maraboli who said, “When you are living the best version of yourself, you inspire others to live the best version of themselves.” What we have often communicated to our patients is the same in reverse—‘When you surround yourself with people living the best version of themselves, you are inspired to live the best version of yourself.’
So no matter where you find yourself today, no matter what has gone before, I encourage you to choose to live well. Living well is not only a far-off goal that we strive to achieve in a distant day. Today matters. Living well is found in the process. Aspire, take action, live. You will no doubt face hardship, disappointment and setbacks. But press yourself, for this is where you discover who you were made to be. You can do it, one choice at a time. It was famous Mt. Everest climber Edmund Hillary who said, “It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.”
