What is health?

Interestingly, there's no definition of "health" anywhere where you can find all kinds of definitions for all kinds of illnesses. So we are free to decide for ourselves what it is that we will think of as "health."

Date:   6/5/2005 2:42:28 PM   ( 19 y ) ... viewed 1905 times

Interestingly, there's no definition of "health" anywhere where you can find all kinds of definitions for all kinds of illnesses. So we are free to decide for ourselves what it is that we will think of as "health." Health is not just something you have when you don't have a debilitating illness -- though it can be as simple as that, sure thing, and for so many people it's totally good enough -- anything that's "better" or "much better" or even "great" can be good enough! And beyond that, health can also be more. One can get ambitious about health. And want more. And more on top of that.

Someone told me a story (whether true or not, I don't know, but chose to believe it) of an athletic lady in her 80s who accidentally locked herself on the balcony of her second floor apartment. Her options were, wait for a few hours before someone comes home, while getting very bored and probably cold; break the glass (large, and quite expensive) -- she had some tool handy, but hated the idea of spending the money to replace the glass; or she could, well, jump. She evaluated her resources carefully (or so she thought), noted that her regular mountain hikes do involve some jumps, albeit not from such heights but still... made a quick assessment of her overall state of health as she knew it, and jumped. She did dislocate her ankle, and later regretted her decision to jump, mostly because she "was as silly and impulsive at 84 as she was at 14 when she would do the same thing. Never learned." The ankle healed within a week or so.

Far as my criteria of "health" are concerned, she's my role model.

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