Health is better than wealth

SUPPLEMENTAL KNOWLEDGE
Jhunie B. Wahayna

Many people are working hard to earn millions of money even if their health is being neglected and compromise. Health and wealth are two words that rhyme so well but often do not occur together. Good health is clearly preferable but if one does not have good health, it is better to have some wealth to ease the burden. Money cannot replace the lack of health, but it goes a long way to make life easier, more comfortable and reduce a major stress in most people's lives.

The real question to be answered is not whether health is better than wealth but what is the true path to happiness. To be healthy but miserable because you are poor is a fairly shallow way to live your life. With health, your potential is unlimited. Nothing stands in the way of traveling, working a job, having a family or going back to school.

With good health, there is always a way to make money to create the life you desire. Poor health is like a roadblock that cannot be driven around. It is always staring you in the face, requiring attention even in the most mundane of tasks. It doesn't release you despite begging, crying, bargaining or even in resignation of your job.

To be wealthy but have poor health is like partial compensation, a kind of a bad news with good news. At least, you will have less concern about the cost of healthcare, cost to live a restricted life and whether there will be money to attend to the further decline of health as you age.

Early to bed and early to rise continues to be the best way to be healthy, wealthy and wise. Health is more than wealth because good health generates healthy activity in the mind which in turn generates wealth of sorts. A healthy man is a wise man. A wise man is a knowledgeable man. One who has knowledge is bound to generate wealth in one form or the other.

A balanced diet for good health is highly recommended. A vegetarian meal is preferable for sound mental and physical health. However, if one is prone to eating non-vegetarian food one should ensure that fresh green vegetables definitely form a part of the menu. A lot of fluid should be taken right from the time one leaves the bed to the time ones retires for the day.

Drinking water up to five liters a day in summer will be health promoting. Physicians always tell us that a human body is 70 per cent fluid and, therefore, intake of fluid is always helpful. Drinking half a liter to a liter of water right in the morning works as a laxative too and helps one in moving bowels effortlessly. Believe it or not, a good movement of bowels generates both internal and external happiness.

Social health is bound to improve when individuals of a society are healthy both physically and mentally. Individuals will go to the rescue of neighbors and even strangers in times of need even without expecting a similar gesture in return. The infamous disease called AIDS, which indeed is assuming an epidemic proportion, is to be tackled socially. If the entire society makes its youth educated in the method of prevention, the need for cure may not arise.

Unfortunately, the senior citizens and others fail in their parental duty in not educating their adolescent children about the gravity of the situation. Let us start the education on AIDS program in a serious and objective manner without fighting shy of talking to our own children on a subject like sex or a sexual ailment.

Being wealthy and in good health means you have the world at your feet, nothing should stand in your way. You can wake up in the morning and carry out any and all of your dreams and plans. You should experience utter happiness that you have the power to conquer anything, unless of course, your health fails then the choice will be obvious. You would likely spend your money in order to get your health back.