“A man has two lives to live, and the second one begins when he realizes he only has one.” – Confucious
One day, many years ago, I was having a very bad day at my teaching job. I was in school late in the evening. I called my wife and said, “I’m sick of this tiring job, not by the job itself but by its corrosive working environment. Let’s quit this job and run away to the USA. I’m not entirely sure I knew how to go to the USA at the time.”
My wife said, “Sounds like you are exhausted, and it’s a pretty good idea. I can help you to research how to go to the USA and if possible, I can also help you to other stuffs too.”
One year later from that phone call, the lovely Macomb city of Illinois welcomed me. I was learning I’d need to be careful what I suggested around this woman I married.
My relationship with my wife and our choice
She became my hero not because she is a great wife, although she is.
She became my hero because she is a great human being.
She takes the time to care people around her life.
She talks less but thinks distinctly beyond the periphery.
When I was a PhD student at The Ohio State a while back, at midnight around my PhD qualifying exam, pregnant with our first baby, she sensed I was struggling to cope with the incoming baby, life and, of course, the hectic pressure of research work. She paused, and then, in that tunnel of life circle, told me to spend less time staring at what’s in front of me (the papers and book), and more time visualizing the outcome.
Having a clear image of the outcome, as she suggested, in my mind, pushed me going.
It gave me a clear purpose, direction, and intent.
I remember many of those life lessons from her during the course of difficulty.
Jack Canfield, speaker and author of “The Success Principles” said beautifully, “ Everything you want is on the other side of fear.”
I sometimes think, “really.”
What is the other side of fear?
Most of us have a fear of losing our job, fear of losing our investments, and most importantly, fear of losing our loved ones.
I understand, we can control some fears, we can minimize some, but some we can’t.
This is one of the basic rules of life.
As humans, we have many obligations to society.
But the primary one is to make sure we, our parents, our sons and daughters, are not a burden to others.
The rest is our personal choice.
Make your own and make the world a far more livable place by picking one choice at a time, influence others by that choice and live the life happily ever.
Hurdle of choices in life
How to make personal choices is another hurdle in our life.
We have to deep down to understand how choice appears in our mind?
I’ve read a parable about the monk and the minister as following.
Two very close friends grow up and choose their quite different paths in life.
One becomes a monk and the other a rich and powerful minister to the king.
After many years they meet in a place.
As they continue talking, the minister uses pity words on the monk.
He continues, “if you would have learned to serve the king, you wouldn’t have to live this poor monk life.”
Monk replies, “if you would have learned to live on monk life, you would not have to be a servant to the King.”
I guess, the essence is, the majority of our lives fall somewhere between monk and minister.
It’s up to us whether we want to go closer to the monk or minister side.
Personally, I want to go closer to the monk side.
Choosing to do a task is the single most powerful tool we have for navigating this complex world we’ve created.
Understanding it in our mind is critical.
If we choose a task to master, the chosen work becomes a wonderful servant. If we don’t, it will surely make us servants.
“But baba,” my wife inquired.
“I know choice is important. I just don’t want to spend my life thinking about it.”
“Many people in this world have much more to do with their precious time and mind than just thinking about a single choice, does it make sense? We have to build tunnels and airports, invent drugs, create amazing technologies, teach new generations about computer and AI, and launch new businesses,” she added.
I told her, “We have to take time, pick one at a time and start doing.”
Process of picking a health choice
Here is one example, from my personal experience, of how choice appears to us.
Recently, I experienced some health issues in my body, and no doctors clearly diagnosed it so far and I chose to read about body, disease, and nutrition.
I was looking for some answers myself.
I realized that I am at the point of transition.
I believe I am moving forward from a focus on survival to sustainability of all.
World is challenging us to use our own essential creativity and shared wisdom to address problems from new dimensions, we have resources in a fingertip.
We have power now to reinvent ourselves along the way.
These thoughts came to my mind once MDs were unable to diagnose my health problem.
Initially, I never thought that our body and mind works this way, but my mind forced me to read things that are relevant to me in the current circumstance because, the bottom line, I want to live healthy and happy, if I can.
I found some interesting facts about our body which are related to my current health issue.
I appreciated a lot one defense system in our body, the microbiome.
We have 40 trillion bacteria in our body to defend our health.
One special bacterium, Akkermansia mucinophila, is very important out of trillions of bacteria in our body.
It is key to control our body mass, metabolism, and immunity.
Lean people have more of these bacteria in their gut than obese people.
Pomegranate, cranberry, turmeric, green tea, and chili pepper help this bacteria to grow in the gut.
These foods make the intestine secrete more mucus making the gut environment better to thrive.
Foods like kimchi, sauerkraut, cheddar cheese, and sourdough bread are very good for our microbiome system.
The mechanism is our bacteria eat what we eat.
They metabolize the food and drink we eat.
After that they create either beneficial or harmful byproducts that influence our health.
I found the key role of another defense system in our body, the immunity.
Foods like blackberries, walnuts, and pomegranate are very good for our immune system.
I found the relationship between common food and angiogenesis in our body, which I had no idea before how it works.
Angiogenesis is the process by which 60 thousand miles of blood vessels are formed.
If all our blood vessels were lined up end to end, they would encircle the earth twice. In 60 seconds, our heart pumps out a drop of blood for blood vessel to circulate throughout the body and back again.
Soy, green tea, coffee, tomatoes, red wine, and hard cheese influence our angiogenesis.
Green tea contains a bioactive compound called epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), which is a potent angiogenesis inhibitor.
It reduces abdominal fat and waist circumference.
Foods like turmeric, soybeans, ginseng, and broccoli all prevent unwanted blood vessels from supplying nourishment to cancer cells, and they suppress the growth of fat cells too.
I found an amazing fact that Asian people, especially Japanese, live so long, why?
Probably, because they consume lots of soy, vegetables, and tea in their diet.
“Really”, I thought.
These foods reduce the chance significantly to lower risk for developing many diseases especially at old age.
Conclusion
As we embrace our life choices, whatever is yours’, I invite you all to share your life experiences, knowledge, and wisdom.
Deep inside us, we are designed to share our knowledge with the global community to make it a better place.
It is this great energy with our choice that drives communities, cultures, companies, and countries to a new level.
The more we put our good energy with our choice into this great unfolding, the better off we all will be.
We owe each other to make this a rewarding place to live called the world.
I love to read about psychology, health, disease, nutrition, and business for value creation even though I’m a scientist by training.
What’s your choice?
Together, we will continue to change the world, one person and one choice at a time.
It is time for us to slow down, breathe, and pick a choice.
What we do certainly makes a difference, and we have to decide what kind of difference we want to make.
Remember, you owe it to yourself to live a life you richly deserve with your own choice.
Yam Timsina, PhD, writes primarily on health basics, scientific progress, social upliftment, and value creation.