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The Most Important Health Article You May Ever Read
Yeah, it sounds like clickbait. But it isn’t.
There’s nothing like starting an article with a chip on your shoulder (Yah, yah, here it comes, another perfect health sales pitch about detox teas…) and realizing you’re dead wrong. I can’t speak for you but that kind of realization effing makes my day.
Why? Because realizing I’m dead wrong is a healthy reminder that frankly, I don’t know shit. And am often wrong. Both of which are true, and both of which, when I am humbled, keep the door open to new thoughts and the sheer magic of being receptive. We can only grow if we admit we don’t know.
The article in question, since I love to write about aging vibrantly, was this:
I love to bark that there are four legs to the long term health stool:
- Good food (that works for you, right here, right now, this body, this age)
- Lots of movement
- A purpose to get you moving around the room to find your socks every day
- A social support system.
Jessica Stillman’s piece actually falls under the fourth category, for it speaks directly to the quality of said social support system. So, in effect, we agree totally (love being right about something) but what I love about her piece is how it teases out the specifics about the one aspect in society, especially right now in America, that seems to have been drained out of our collective souls.
Kindness. First, to the self, for if we are forever being vicious drill sergeants, there is no room for the milk of human kindness to fill ourselves. To that, yesterday I read two horrific articles centering body hate, which, if you will, is hardly kind. But it sells, doesn’t it? Kindness doesn’t, self-hate does.
GAH.
Any walk through my Eugene neighborhoods and you will see the kindness signs. Any walk through a HomeGoods store and you will see signs reminding…
