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by Donald B. Ardell, Ph. D.
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Wellness in the Headlines
(Don's Report to the World)

A Lifestyle of Mediocre Wellness?

Wednesday April 11, 2001

The other day, I received an email from a Wellness Web visitor who said she was living a life of wellness mediocrity. What an odd idea. She wrote, "I am not overweight for my height but am not exactly in top bikini shape (until summer rolls around). I eat healthfully most of the time but occasionally indulge in sweets or chips especially around the holidays. I walk a lot but rarely break a sweat, having not managed to include aerobic exercise in my weekly activities due to career and family taking priority. My cholesterol is near 200 but HDLs are 85. I agree with the merits of living an all around wellness lifestyle but I need guidance for ways to improve my current mediocrity. Am I being too hard on myself?"

Let's assume you asked that question, so I can address this to you as I did to the good lady. Wellness mediocrity sounds like an oxymoron, a combination of contradictory or incongruous words that basically cancel each other out! Too hard on yourself? Au contraire -- it sounds more like a case of being too easy on yourself, for two reasons: 1) the lifestyle you choose is of such overriding importance that it deserves the highest possible commitment; and 2) the goal selected is not ambitious enough -- don't settle for top bikini shape. That's window dressing, a false front like a Potemkin village. Create the real thing -- a wellness lifestyle from top to bottom, from the physical, to the mental, to meaning and purpose dimensions of whole person excellence.

It's paradoxical but true, in my opinion, that it's actually easier in the long run to be HARDER on yourself in the near term -- at least insofar as lifestyle commitments in your own best interests. I gave the "top bikini shape" lady credit for sensing the need for a change in priorities, for this, after all, must precede any plan of action. She knew, at some level, that the time had come to transcend mediocrity.

Life will be easier if you escalate a self-managing lifestyle because you will feel better about yourself, you'll be engaged in a worthy pursuit, you'll be having more fun, you will be less stressed, and other benefits will accrue. For these reasons, life will be "easier" (though more vigorous) due to the experience of more satisfaction, health, and sense of consequence. Don't you agree?

For all these reasons, I urge a higher standard than top bikini shape -- or its male equivalent for guys reading this. Choose instead to become the athlete that is within your potential, even if you have not been training for a very long while. Experiment and dabble in many routines until you find an exercise pattern you find agreeable and sustainable, and use that ritual to shape the fittest level possible given your potentials. While you are at it, nourish yourself better, psychologically as well as physically.

And, one more thing. If you're a woman, don't take the Hollywood model of perfect appearance too seriously! Reassess the gravity or importance you attach to the passing attention of we men folk. My sense is that women want to be in top bikini shape the better to attract men, which is simply not necessary. Men are so pitiful in this regard -- they would be attracted to a goat in a bikini. Compromise yourself to please a man? Don't bother, for as Flecker opined in the prologue to The Golden Journey to Samarkand (1913), "What would ye, ladies? It was ever thus; men are unwise and curiously planned."

Be harder on yourself for better reasons, the kind worthy of your highest and best self. Choose personal excellence and the challenging lifestyle it entails -- this approach will soon enough make life "easier" and better by far.

All the best. Good wishes.

Domain: physical
Subdomain: lifestyle habits

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