don's report archive

by Donald B. Ardell, Ph. D.

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

In the last essay, I suggested that a devotion to personal well-being in no way suggested or required neglecting the commons or public interest. Wellness enthusiasts can, in varied ways, encourage this country's new leaders to focus on a priority list of environmental awareness-based concerns (including economic and social priorities). I also suggested that it would be timely if the National Wellness Institute (NWI) played a leadership role in selecting, debating and then setting out a list of priority targets for activism by wellness enthusiasts and promoters.

What might such an agenda look like?

The possibilities are nearly endless, given the range of problems at the community, state, national and world levels. Disparate individuals will not agree on the most pressing interventions. However, to get things started, here is a REAL wellness-based list of suggested priorities, beginning with environmental concerns.

• Promote energy independence, sustainable fuels and efficient power sources. Subsidize personal initiatives that advance these objectives (e.g., weatherizing of homes and other structures). 
  
  
• Reduce global warming AND the nation's dependence on fossil fuels (e.g., oil), especially oil from the Middle East, Russia and Venezuela.
  
  
• Promote a worldwide effort to resurrect oceanic dead zones, while preventing further mortality of coastal-waters. All ecological threats should be addressed, including global warming, freshwater depletion, contamination by antibiotic residues/synthetic chemicals and heavy metals, but cleaning up ocean dead zones should be more urgent than the rest, given the destructive potentials of oxygen-free waters.
  
  
• Mitigate global poverty, a foundation for all manner of perturbations, such as religious fundamentalism and subsequent mindless violence. Approximately two billion people are struggling to live on $2 a day or less. 
  
  
• Conclude the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (estimated financial cost—$10 billion a month!) Other war costs, such as lives lost and bodies severely damaged, are beyond calculation. Consider that $540 billion a year, in addition to the $120 billion annually for two wars, goes to other military spending. (Source: Bernie Sanders, U.S. Senator, "Where Do We Go from Here?" BuzzFlash, 12/29/2008.)

Economic and social awareness challenges might include the following:

• Deficit and national debt reduction. The latter is now at $10.4 trillion dollars.
  
  
• Identify and eliminate abusive tax breaks for the rich—develop a system for a somewhat more equitable distribution of wealth, based more on merit than inheritance.
  
  
• Support the rebirth of a strong middle class and a decent level of security, education and care for the poor. Among other aspects of such a goal, emphasize steps that will reduce childhood poverty and extreme gaps in wealth and income distribution.
  
  
• Reform the infrastructure of regulation and monitoring undermined during the eight years of the Bush Administration. Insure that Wall Street, insurance and drug companies, the military-industrial-complex, the oil and coal companies, big media and other powerful special interests do not bring America to its knees, where it is today.
  
  
• Discontinue selective taxpayer bailouts of Wall Street firms, auto makers and other businesses.
  
  
• Institute health system reforms that emphasize, support and reward wellness lifestyles. 
  
  
• Focus on quality education at all levels by modernizing schools, boosting teacher training and increasing pay levels for positive student performance.
  
  
• Boost employment levels and job opportunities. Seek finance reforms and employ other methods of advancing the public interest.
  
  
• Do what is needed to stabilize the housing industry.
  
  
• Establish safeguards to protect savings and retirement accounts.
  
  
• Last but not least, launch a concerted effort to promote greater democracy at home. 

Well, this is a substantial list of project possibilities for society and possibly the NWI. The Institute, like the rest of society, can play but a modest part, but in doing so can channel the concerns and labors of wellness enthusiasts toward the great environmental challenges of our era.

The Institute and wellness seekers alike will, of course, continue to advance health and well-being in lifestyle areas. There are many reasons to add an environmental awareness dimension to the wellness agenda. One is that seekers and promoters of good living will never have to feel guilty about personal advancement while neglecting a larger good. Reaching out beyond self benefits those who do so, as well as recipients—good works are usually personally rewarding.

Be well. Look on the bright side of life.

(Note: This essay will be filed in the archives in the MEANING DOMAIN under the skill area of applied wellness. 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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