As a father, a husband and a citizen of the world, I am compelled to do everything within my power to leave the world a better place than I found it. In my life I have witnessed many remarkable changes, the collapse of one of the world's great superpowers, the invention of new modes of communication …
Continue reading The Power of Food: Jamie Oliver’s One Wish for Humanity
A long-standing central desire of mine is to help my fellows live healthier, happier lives. I do my best to center my words, my work and my living on the theme of life enhancement, yet I am often surprised by how rarely people tend to act on what they know they need to do to live healthier, more balanced lives. A circuit breaker …
Continue reading Self-Determination Theory: Creating Long-Lasting Change
There was an excellent article in the New York Times yesterday that underlines the risk of addressing symptoms rather than the underlying cause when addressing problems (see http://tinyurl.com/3yw758o). Such an approach offers appealing and typically profitable short-term gains, but invariably produces long-term side-effects and costs that outweigh the initial benefits. A biodynamic and organic farmer friend of mine argues that weeds thrive only in compromised soil. …
Continue reading U.S. Farmers Cope with Roundup Resistant Weeds: Address the Cause not the Symptom
I work in the health and wellness industry and there is no doubt in my mind that we could benefit from this type of thinking when considering medical reform. So much of medicine focuses on a "one-size-fits-all" approach and I often wonder how much more effective our health care practitioners would be if the idea of "universality" was secondary to the idea of "variability."
Wellbeing is not a static state obtained through steely determination. True health is the result of constant adjustment, continual adapation to the circumstances at hand. It is not a fixed and rigid place devoid of pleasure. Neither is it achieved through gluttony and hedonism. Wellbeing is found not at the extremes, but somewhere in the middle.
To be sure, life was not meant to be a monotonous experience. Rather than expecting the worse or dreading your lot, ask yourself "how can I most creatively handle this situation" and give yourself fully to the situation at hand. Pour yourself into it. Don't hold back.
Gregory Hake 