If a genie offered you a free car, what would you pick? Here are the terms, you can pick any car that you want, it can be a Ferrari, a Mercedes SUV, a Tesla, a school bus, but there’s a catch. The catch is that it will be the only car that you have for the rest of your life. Knowing that, you might pick a Toyota (known for their reliability) instead of a Ferrari. You would also take extremely good care of it. If a piece of paint chipped off, you would fix it instead of letting rust form. If you heard some strange sound from the engine, you would take it to the mechanic. You would do regular oil changes and maintenance, because you only get one car.
Well, you’ve already got the deal. But you didn’t get a car, you got a body. And whether you’re rich or poor, you only get one. Elon Musk has over $200 billion but he only has one body, just like the guy in rural India surviving on $2 a day. And if something went wrong his, he would die, just like the guy in India. Musk has better access to human mechanics (aka doctors) but he still only gets one body and when it wears out he will die like the rest of us. If he doesn’t take care of his body, that ending will come sooner than if he does take care of himself.
Wellness is more important than wealth. An Armani suit is expensive, but being lean and fit in a jeans and t-shirt looks better than being out of shape in an Armani suit. As of this writing, we’re almost two years into the pandemic and the world hasn’t returned to normal. Those expensive suits have probably been sitting in your closet gathering dust. I don’t see people dressed up for Zoom calls. But what about your health? Your weight is a co-morbidity that you have control over, so control it. Yeah, but the gyms are closed. How about a long walk? There’s no way you can lose 50 pounds. How about 1 pound this week, then one pound next week? After a year, that’s more than 50 pounds. And if you have less to lose than that, it will take less than a year.
Be a better friend to yourself. Take care of your body and mind. You only have one of each to last you for your entire human existence, so treat it with the importance that it deserves.