In the complicated world we live in today, it is essential to concentrate on some important aspects of our lives and staying young and healthy emerges as paramount. A friend very kindly sent me a video on what is believed are essential attributes to staying young and healthy; and I am sharing it with you.
Throw out non-essential numbers -- this includes age, weight, height, let the Doctors worry about them, that is why you pay them. Keep only cheerful friends, the grouches pull you down Never let your brain idle, an idle mind is the devil’s workshop. Keep learning -- learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, cooking, whatever. Enjoy the simple things, laugh often, long and loud, laugh until you gasp for breath. The tears happen, endure, grieve and move on. The only person who is with us in our entire lives is ourselves and God. Your home is your refuge. Be alive while you are alive.
Surround yourself with what you love, whether its family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants. Cherish your health if it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it, if it is beyond what you can improve, get help. Don’t take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next country, to a foreign country but not to where the guilt is.
Tell the people you love that you love them at every opportunity. Always remember that life is measured not by the breaths you take but by what takes your breath away. Worry about nothing, pray about everything.
Let us take a look at what the inimitable Pope Francis, one of my most favorite people, says about Life:
“Rivers do not drink their own water, trees do not eat their own fruit, the sun does not shine on itself; and flowers do not spread their fragrance for themselves. We are all born to help each other. No matter how difficult it is, Life is good when you are happy but much better when others are happy because of you.”
Happiness is significant, happiness is important to us as individuals and to the world in general. Looking at a newspaper, or watching TV we often find ourselves dwelling on the happiness aspects of the countries and people we read about or look at. Sadly, we rarely read about happiness, whether individual or universal, though as individuals we possess cognitive ability and are fiercely thought-oriented towards the pursuit of happiness. I guess the question here is would you rather be poor and happy or rich and miserable?
Conversely, there are very rich successful people who are happy, they are happy because they are not wealth-oriented, they seek to share, to know the immeasurable joy of giving, of seeing the face of a child light up; perhaps or even a patient destined to die and to whom they have brought some measure of hope, prolonged their life through their acts of generosity and kindness. Perhaps it is difficult for most rich people to even imagine the pathos, the sadness, the absolute utter hopelessness of being in a hospital bed and being told there is no hope -- no hope because there is no money to buy the medication that would bring that hope! What would happen if someone were to tell them and even one rich individual would volunteer to pay for the medication, injection or whatever was needed. One of the greatest blessings in life, is to be able to do something rewarding, something heartwarming for another human being, a child maybe, whatever, to give someone the extended joy of living, maybe even for another day, another week, another month. Could there be a blessing greater than that??? The Heart Surgeons of today perform those miracles not only here but around the world; sadly however, some poor people here and also in other parts of the world, are not in a position to even have this life-giving operation.
What an absolute joy and blessing it would be if some rich people here were to get together and initiate a Heart Foundation to help the truly needy. Set up a panel of Judges to ascertain the merits and demerits of each individual case, and give LIFE to those who truly need it. Honestly, there could be no greater meritorious act than that.
Moving from the heart to the kidney, is yet another area in which there is an inordinate demand these days. Here again, we have to think in terms of those who cannot afford to have a kidney transplant. In both these instances, the surgeons have to pay special attention to ascertain if the heart or the kidney that is available, is suitable for the person concerned and does not run the risk of being rejected. This is vital and though these life-giving organs are made available, sometimes after a considerable period of time, they have to be determined as being suitable in every way for the recipient to avoid the risk of rejection.
In all these cases, the surgeons concerned are generally looked upon as gods who are about to perform miracles. The responsibility of the transplant whether it is heart or kidney weighs heavily on the surgeon and more often than not they are frustrated by the lack of donor organs or in some instances, the inability to get a donor in time or even not at all, which invariably causes death. The cardiac or the kidney transplant surgeons are not just required to perform the operation to satisfaction but also to monitor whether the heart or kidney is successfully accepted. In some instances when rejection is sustained, it is heartbreaking not only for the patient but for the surgeon as well. We would do well to remember that the surgeons are not God, they can only do their best and leave the rest to God -- the outcome is destiny, something we all have to accept.
THE VOICE
