What exactly is health?
Health is the highest good. Without it, everything is nothing - but what does health mean? Is it simply the absence of illness - or something more?
The WHO says:
"Health is a state of complete mental, physical and social well-being and not just freedom from illness and infirmity."
Aha, mental, physical and social well-being. A nice definition that includes far more than non-existent illness.
"Are you okay?"
This is a question that sometimes serves more, sometimes less as a cliché - a good way to start a conversation, even if an honest answer often doesn't want to be heard and would go beyond the scope of harmless small talk.
Sunday is a good day to send your thoughts on a little journey. This time perhaps on a journey through our being in search of the answer to the often carelessly asked question: "Are you okay?" Perhaps we will recognize one or two points that we can work on or that we are actually doing pretty well.
Yes, we are doing well
A few days ago, I read this saying on social media:
If you get up in the morning and are healthy rather than sick, you are better off than the millions of people who will not live to see the next week.
If you have never been in the danger of battle, in the loneliness of captivity, in the agony of torture or in the vise of hunger, you are better off than 500 million people.
If you can live your faith without fear of being threatened, tortured or killed, you are luckier than 3 billion people.
If you have food in your fridge, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75 percent of the people in the world.
If you have money in a bank, in your wallet and in your piggy bank, you belong to the most privileged 8 percent of the world.
And anyway, you are blessed because you are not one of the 2 billion people who can neither read nor write.
Mental, physical and social well-being
Mental well-being
The WHO says:
"A state of well-being in which the individual is able to fulfill his or her abilities, cope with the normal stresses of life, work productively and fruitfully, and contribute to his or her community."
Here, too, it is probably about much more than being free from mental illness. Mastering your life with all its challenges, being productive - wherever that applies to each individual and experiencing yourself as part of a larger whole... that makes sense.
Physical well-being
I trust myself to do that - I don't ask the WHO.
From my point of view, this is freedom from illness in the physical sense - but not only that. The term "well-being" implies more: a feeling of well-being in your own body, which should of course be absolutely pain-free.
Personally, I am blessed with this valuable commodity, but unfortunately I only realize this when I get a taste of the world of illness for a short time - only then do I feel what health means.
Social well-being
This is about our place in society, or rather, in OUR world, society sounds too superficial and global to me.
This factor should not be underestimated. People who are embedded in a harmonious environment in which they feel accepted and included and to which they can also contribute to the success of the construct feel considerably more comfortable in their own skin than those who are searching for it. Finding our place can be a life's work, but it can be done.
Often, clubs and groups or voluntary work can also help here. So if you are not so blessed to have been born into a loving extended family, you can also take your fate into your own hands.
pro.earth conclusion:
Health is only partly God-given - we have the power to control our own well-being. You just have to know which screw to turn. 💚
