don's report archive

by Donald B. Ardell, Ph. D.

Wellness in the Headlines
(Don's Report to the World)

This continues the previous essay about a memorable keynote given twenty years ago at the National Wellness Conference (NWC) by the late Robert F. Allen. The keynote was delivered on the last day of the 1987 conference. Those present at that event will experience a bit of déjà vu this summer when Bob's son Judd Allen gives a follow-up keynote twenty years later in his father's honor. He will use a similar visual aide, which was discussed in the last essay at this site. If you did NOT read the earlier essay, I recommend you do so before continuing. Go to http://www.seekwellness.com/wellness/reports/2007-06-30.htm.

Judd - Delighted to have the privilege of reading this preview of your keynote. I have mixed feelings about the BB business, as described. On the plus side, it's a nice way to recall and honor your dad, and even absent that memory, it's both visual AND auditory. Always good to play to an audience's senses, for you can never count on everyone therein having that foundation of all senses, the one society mistakenly suggests is common.

Here's my reservation, and that's all it is, not an overt suggestion that you not do the BB scene. I have two reservations, in fact.

# 1 -- The first is the very reason I called the BB show a plus a moment ago (talk about "double-edged" swords!) -- your dad did it. If you are going to honor that historic occasion and your dad, update it, somehow. Maybe use cannonballs. With gunpowder. Something. Wait - I've got it. See reservation number two, below. 

# 2 -- The biggest concern is all the negativity represented by the sound of the dropped BBs. Every twinkle represents something not good, something worrying, stressful and problematic. I know that's the point, but my point is this: the setting is Stevens Point, during the National WELLNESS Conference. One of the disappointments of the NWCs, to me, is that these gatherings have not been occasions when we celebrate and (more important) articulate the unique and wonderful qualities of the wellness concept. This is a special time when we can expand upon the concept at every turn (i.e., keynote, presentation, workshop, activity and chit chat). This is THE best occasion we have when leaders of the movement could seize the day and communicate -- and convince, many others to promote WELLNESS. (No, it need not be called REAL wellness. I came up with that only because I don't think most of what passes under the term IS wellness.) The rest of the issues, problems and crises that are addressed everywhere else are very important, vital, necessary and probably MORE important than wellness but, and this is the key point, wellness is NOT being put forward anywhere else. This is the Mecca, Ganges or, for us secular types, the Club Med or maybe Hedonism of wellness, a special but not sacred place for thinking and living in a manner that advances emotional and physical well being. Our lectures should show how to do this in relation to the great problems. This is the time to promote thinking in x ways, behaving in y ways because doing so enables a richer existence, more fun, better communities, that doing so also enables greater support for our families and friends, adds meaning and purpose and so on. 

So, I would urge that if you are going to drop a few or a bazillion BBs, you do so in a positive context. Yes, address the big issues that demand a wellness culture. Then help everyone think about the nature of a wellness culture. They already know about the problems; if people only had a visceral sense of something or many things of a positive nature, they might not be as much a part of such problems. A speaker can't convey a visceral sense of joy, but he can at least remind them that such things exist -- and he can give a few examples of the forms they might take. How many ever had a chance to understand what it must feel like to run through the streets of New York with tens of thousands of other wellness celebrants, or to have the capacity in middle or late age to bike long and fast, or swim a mile with swarms of others or just feel great and excited about good things ahead? That's what we're selling - exuberance. Exuberance, wellness -- that's our way to reduce the incidence of smoking, alcohol abuse, sedentary living and all the other perturbations that others never hesitate to quantify and illustrate and chill us over. We're different. We have a unique approach. Let's use the best of all settings to let everyone know how wellness leaders would have society deal with these terrible problems.

Chilling effects are well and good but joyful chills have no equal.

What do we want to hear? The sound of a BB representing

A. 100 premature annual deaths? Or,

B. 100 new Mike Huckabee types (the former Arkansas Governor and current Republican presidential candidate is also a keynoter at this conference) who have come forward in the past year to declare, in their own fashion, for wellness -- all former sedentary folks who, through culture change programs, lost weight and kept it off, learned successful ways to take responsibility for adding quality to their days who, in turn, now share their successes with others?

I'd like to hear another sound, as well: A single BB for every 100 persons who were exposed to varied and sundry wellness-based messages that placed politics, religion and sex in a rational, tolerant and loving context, messages that led not a single person so exposed to align with the Republican Party.

I think the sound of every such BB would be enough to cause me to want to hold hands with others in your audience, sway and even break out in a stanza or two of "Amazing Grace." Just kidding. I'll never do that (something about that "a wretch like me" line never sounded very wellness-like).

Let there be BBs for every 100 wellness enthusiasts who since the last NWC switched from alcohol abuse to Perrier, from smoking to exercising, from fanaticism and dogma to science and reason (hard to count but what an exciting question to pursue) and from being prisoners of hostility and stress to students of the art and science of happiness and the quest for added meaning and purpose in life.

I like the idea of connecting cultural breakdowns with a vulnerability extreme/fanatical thinking, especially if you give specific examples of extreme/fanatical thinking.

All this is a way to avoid tethering our wellness story to a broken illness care system. It is instead a way of TELLING a wellness story, a tale not heard very often or effectively anywhere else, including at Stevens Point, until now. 

Sure, flash the cost of medical care, urge a mobilization for NHI but be sure to mention the needed wellness elements (incentives and wellness lifestyle supportive subsidies) that must be built into NHI to make it effective as a cultural support for wise and empowering lifestyles of positive quality, individually determined.

If you want to be like an Italian with a tripling of our vacation time, mention how that can come about. I can't see our profit-oriented business model that is already challenged in a global economy with outsourcing to cheap labor regions adopting this, but go ahead and support the idea, if you propose it. I can think of a few possibilities for individuals who think it the best notion since sliced whole wheat bread:

A. Learn Italian, then emigrate.
B. Self-employment.
C. Start a commune.
D. Drastically lower expectations.

I'm sure you can mention some others, more attractive to the masses. If not, better not to mention it, for some will think it pie-in-the-sky, and we have enough presidential candidates offering that as it is.

When you get around to culture change methodology and illustrations of successful culture change, be sure the cases (Frost Valley, South Africa and specific American work settings) are truly successful from a wellness model. A REAL wellness model, not fewer smokers, substance abusers, nose-pickers, Republicans, masturbators and other measures of dysfunction.

OK, leave the masturbators off this list. I abhor hypocrites.

Be well. Look on the bright side of life. Peace.

(Note: This essay will be filed in the archives in the MENTAL DOMAIN under the skill area of factual knowledge. Additional articles related to this theme may be found there.)

(Ed. Note: Views expressed in this and other columns are those of the author and not necessarily those of the SeekWellness Editorial Board.)

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