I speak to you today, struggling to climb out of the depths of various health deficiencies. I cannot stress how good health and a healthy lifestyle is essential to your life. While others may speak from the heights of healthy living, I speak from its crevices. I have not fallen from the pinnacle of heath, but from a life of mediocrity. I let myself fall. There are, apparently, 6 aspects of a healthy lifestyle. I will do my utmost to describe their relations as I see them. Welcome to the allegory of my life:
I have trouble knowing where to begin, but I guess it all started with this (un?)fortunate fact. I never learned Cantonese. You may be wondering how this is relevant, but it was this fact that kept me from friends, an essential part of social health. As a young boy, I only knew Filipino and English, yet most of my peers did not know the language as I did. My parents both work, and my helper busy, so for those crucial years, I was alone. Sure I got along well, but I was lead to a disillusioned mindset, a mindset of a recluse; I hardly ever played with others during recess, and I took a better liking to books. I remember an ever shifting group of acquaintances, and one or two “friends” that shifted most every school year (except Justin, of course, we’ve always been united one way or another). Socially speaking, I was always a lonely, sickly child.
What that social isolation led me to was a change in mindset. I soon grew to believe that it was better to be alone, or to have few friends to trust. I started to believe that it was natural. I still believe that a few close friends are better than a horde of comrades with the same interests. In such isolation, my mental health flourished. My imagination, unusually strong for one so young, was strengthened even more once I learned how to read. My mind shifted away from mindless cartoons to the discovery channel, which I found more fulfilling. I learned empathy from first person novels; abstract concepts from imagination; morality and its dilemmas within the plots various programmes and novels. I grew to love the fine arts (a little too much; spent third grade reading in class), and with it, a fine intuition.
In turn, my spirituality grew strong and healthy. I learned to ask the greater questions in life, some as early as the age of 13. I asked of the world around us, and searched myself, the Bible, and beyond for the answer. As a result, I became even more estranged to most of my peers. The lack of social interaction began to take its toll on me.
This in turn affected my emotional health. Being an emotional boy in the first place, I came to notice emptiness inside of me. My exploits to fill that void are well known to all of you. Being socially starved, I had no idea on how to make new friends; I’m still quite socially awkward. This in turn caused extra frustration; therefore, it caused extra stress. Here my intellect turned against me. I am still constantly plagued by surfacing doubts and conflicts, as well as vivid, beautiful memories of past days.
Environmentally I have always been conscious, with regards to the Discovery Channel. As a child, I recall believing (after a few documentaries on oil, pesticides, and water) that society would crumble before my next birthday. I recall unearthing oversensitivity and paranoia with issues, both environmental and non. They, fueled by over circumstantial reasoning and imagination, ended up in a major guilt trip, one that I have repressed, the only one I have repressed.
This all comes down to my physical health. A repressed oversensitivity made itself known, with me trying to control it with insensitivity. In turn, I am usually overcome with guilt, sometimes overly paranoid guilt. As a result of all this internal drama, and a Carpe-diem (et nocte) mindset, I get minimal sleep during the school year. Coupled with my coffee habit to treat my frayed nerves, I am short. I am also too busy to exercise. I eat whatever, healthy if possible, but not always.
I hope you now see, dear reader, the interdependencies of these aspects. They fall like dominos. I should know.
The Editor, Paolo La’O
