Getting it Just Right!

Thanks to Pixabay.com for the use of this Photo

Getting it “just right” is a national pastime.  And on the heels of the World Series, why not have another pastime?

What am I talking about?

In health, healthcare and wellness, and all the jargon, information and opinions surrounding these topics, getting it “just right” has become a national pastime. Any group or group setting will invariably have an “expert” in the discussion who knows the best diet, the best exercise, the best sleep, the best everything.

I get it. We are a country that is enjoying unimaginable wealth, longevity and increasing leisure time. Leisure time is a great thing and should be enjoyed. But trying to get the right equation, the right combination, the right recipe can be all that is happening during your hours of leisure.

I recently re-watched the delightful film, Julie and Julia. I enjoyed it the first time and the second was no different. Your mouth waters through most of the film! Thanks again Janie Glover for turning us onto this film and always serving life with butter!

The take away this time was different and came in the Epilogue of the film. In reading the epilogue we see that Julia and her husband both lived into their 90’s. Not that shocking until you consider they did absolutely everything wrong. Literally every scene in the film is marked with smoking, drinking alcoholic beverages and eating rich, buttery, fatty foods. By all measures, they both should have been taking the Big Nap many years previous.

What gives?

From what I can deduce from the film, Julia Childs was a joyful person. She had the incredible ability to take what was in front of her, which came with a great amount of uncertainty, and figure out how to make things great. She embraced life with such passion, such enthusiasm, almost abandon, that everyone else in her world got swept up in it too. Julia was infectious.

Infectious with joy.

In his extremely interesting and wonderfully readable book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell, begins with a tale of a community that did everything wrong, health-wise. Animal fats, smoking, obesity all marked the lifestyle of these Italian immigrants of the early 1900’s. Yet there was virtually no disease within their community, while others in communities of the same era were sick and perishing.

What gives?

Again, Gladwell comes to our rescue with the remedy of joy. And he never mentions green smoothies.

Any discussion of health and habits and wellness that doesn’t include a discussion of the wonder of it all, the inherent challenge in living and changing and growing, “the joy”, is just another pathetic attempt to get it just right.

Don’t fall for it.

Cheers,

ks