For Your Health!

Sitting in my in-box this morning was a Dr. Mercola newsletter and I haven’t had a chance to look at these very much, but I know they are important to know to stay healthy and for some people it may be completely new ideas.

More Dirty Drug Company Secrets, Using Drugs Causes 700,000 in U.S. to go to ER Every Year, and Cheat Disease by Changing Your Environment. Read them!

Whistling Straights

Last July I wrote the introduction to what could’ve been a good story if I had continued, but I didn’t. Here is what I wrote:

The large, stone house melts into view as her cherry-red Audi pulls up the long cobblestone drive. Three men dressed in white suits descend the wide porch steps to assist her carrying her luggage. She follows them up the three steps onto the porch and in through the thick Swiss-made dark wooden doors. The foyer is spacious with perfect stone flooring; a stair case cures from the right. Sturdy wood beams crisscross the high ceiling with four vertical beams marking the perimeter of the hall. The suited men disappear up the staircase with her luggage as she crosses the length of the anteroom through a formidable entrance-way into the dining room. Additional beams crisscross the ceiling as well and many more vertical beams throughout the great dinner hall. She pauses at the entryway as she confidently assesses each person in the room. The noise of the room seems to reduce for a breath of time, if only to her ears, as her search ends. She moves through the crowd of rambunctious people effortlessly and finally at the far side of the room near the enormous stone fireplace her journey comes to an end…

Competition

So today I woke up and eventually took a shower. And no, this is not going in “that” direction. As I was standing around afterwards brushing my teeth, I felt a bug crawling on my lower back! I practically freaked until I realized it was only my hair. And that, my friends, is how you know you’re hair is really getting long!

I realized two weeks ago that I always do these competitions with myself or to prove something to someone else. One year I was a vegetarian to prove to one of my cousins that I could do it, I have gone on 3 day [healthy] fasts, I have cut wheat out of my diet for months, I have cut sugar out of my diet for months on end and I have done both at the same time. Now for the last 6.5 days (only?) I am on a no-coffee regime.  What a ridiculous idea, by the way.  I am also waiting until after Dec 7 of this year to trim my hair, because by then I will have gone a year without taking a scissors to it.

Does anyone else have any crazy competitions they do with themselves?

Food For Thought

Wednesday night, as I was productively slugging around work, my coworker noticed my slugginess and made a comment/asked me if I ate enough today and effectively got me thinking about why people eat food. There seems to be a few different reasons…

• for taste
• for weight gain/weight loss
• for emotional cravings
• for certain health benefits (i.e. eating food for its protein content or for fiber)
• etc

So how many people consciously eat food with the idea of fueling their body for the rest of the day? Not too many people and I am part of the guilty party (obviously, from the way my day went!). Imagine if everyone ate consciously… the U.S. would not have such an obesity problem. We would most likely experience a decrease in food disorders too, not to mention a decrease in mental/mood disorders.

A very good resource for any questions or answers relating to health is Mercola.com. In the top there is a search bar, type in whatever phrase you would like information on. I have a few recommended readings:

• raw milk (vs pasteurized milk)
• birth control
• organic foods

And here are a few interesting websites from Dr. Mercola:

• The Doors of Perception: Why Americans Will Believe Almost Anything
• The “Experts” Are Wrong About Raw Milk

The Mistakes Our Government Makes

A single mother cannot recieve government funding unless her monthly income is less than 800 dollars a month. What does this mean? It means our government is actually rewarding slothfulness among single parents! The government gives money to parents who do almost nothing and makes almost no money and gives no money to those who actually are taking steps to move above poverty.

My friend, a single mother who apparently makes “too much money”, asked me to borrow her money for her baby’s ear infection medication because she can go to no one else. She works two jobs so she can pay rent, pay for the car, she has a baby to take care of and herself and no one else to help her.

Yes, some people make choices that are bad for themselves… but why punish them and their offspring the rest of their lives by making them always run after money instead of letting them focus on raising a tiny United States citizen.  The better we treat our own, the better our country will be.

The Weekend

Saturday my parents had a bonfire at their house and later a hay-bale ride. First it was the “mature” people ride, which really had more to do with making the older folks feel better about their age, and afterwards it was the “immature” people ride, again it had more to do with making the first generation feel OK about their age. After the fourth (or fifth?) round of “the cutest boy…” I was begining to believe I was on the wrong hay-bale ride.

There is something to be said for the aging process, actually there are probably many things to be said about aging. Our culture tends to value youth over age versus the Japanese or Chinese cultur where they value the wisdom that comes with age instead of the foolishness of youth.

I was at work on Saturday morning while a parade on Main Street was passing by (put on by Shriners) and an older man stepped into the Coop to get out of the cold, talk about Shriners or watch… I’m not sure which. As the old Shriner men zoomed by on their itty-bitty, mini scooters, he made the point about these old men trying to pretend they were little kids again. It was a very valid point, in my view.

Women (and some men) dye their hair to avoid grey hairs, women (and some men) mad diet to keep looking youthful, weight loss pills, plastic surgery, clothing to hide figures, clothing to show off figures, and the list goes on. Why can’t we just be who we are? Why do we need to hide behind a mask?

My sincere hope for all people is to accept the age you are… you will only be this age once so live it while you are it. Trying to fool other people is ridiculous and the only person you are fooling is yourself.

What People Notice

Today I have been thinking about what emotions or encounters people experience that impel them to come out of their shell and to voice their thoughts to the world around them. The majority of time a person verbalizes his or her feelings in society* when he or she is upset by another’s behavior (or lack thereof). Yet when a person is kind, considerate and, in general, nice no one mentions a thing. That person remains unrewarded for their behavior because our society views that as expected. The only time a person is rewarded for kind behavior is if he or she goes completely out of his or her way to help another person or gives money away for no apparent reason.

To summarize, an individual will be recognized, on a scale of -10 to +10 (-10 being unexceptional and +10 being extraordinary), for one of two reasons:

1. if he or she is “off” by even the tiniest measure; a score of -.01 or lower
2. if he or she is has accomplished an amazing feat or went to the edge of the world selflessly; a score of +9 or higher

The interesting thing is that measure by which we negatively measure others is individually based. The measure is a larger margin: from -.01 all the way to -10. For example, how many people would be upset if the driver in front of them was going 65 mph on a 65 mph highway? And how many people are saying right now, “well that’s the speed limit, what would you expect?”

What makes a person extraordinary is a little more universal. There is less of a margin: only a score +9 and higher makes the cut.

What happens to the individuals who score between 0 and +8.9?  Hmmm…
On nearly every commercial vehicle on the road there is a sign on the back with their vehicle’s personal identification number and the saying, “How am I driving? Call (###) ###-####.” Who actually takes time to call that number? Well, other drivers on that road who are mad or somehow displeased with the driving. On one particular day I chose to call the number and after I read the trucker’s identification number into the phone I told the woman on the other end that the driver was doing a very good job driving. She didn’t even know what to say! And, I will admit, neither did I. It was a rather awkward moment, yet at the same time I had this feeling that I had done something good for the world.

So this is where our society is: we rarely focus on the good, unless its extremely good. And people wonder why we so much more violence that before. It is all because we reward the slim top percentage of people who are extraordinary, negatively reward individuals who make us mad and disregard those who have a neutral to pleasant affect on us.

*society: a setting containing two or more individuals in a social setting