Neema Ejercito (she/her/hers), Low Entropy Volunteer Writer
This topic for me is similar to being asked the question “Which would you choose among the three: good health, wealth or fame?” The answer has always been simple to me, and that would be good health. When asked by a friend why I chose it, I reasoned that without good health, I would not be able to enjoy the other two if I had all three of them. I can’t say the same for the other two. In fact, either of them could easily lead to bad health.
In high school, I had a PE teacher who shared that he wished people weren’t so quick to judge others’ health based on how big or small they looked. A fit-looking person could actually have a weak heart, while a stocky one may be nimble on their feet. So in relation to health, the important thing to improve is one’s perception of it. If we don’t keep our perspectives in check and instead keep closed minds about new scientific discoveries on our health, we will keep repeating bad habits that we thought used to work at a certain age and insist on doing just that because it worked then.
I remember growing up taking for granted that I had high metabolism. I loved to eat and didn’t really have to worry about gaining weight. I was also active in sports, and because I found them fun, I didn’t really think that practice, nor diet, was a sacrifice. I just thought both came with the territory. I was also a dessert lover and a sweets person in general, and it’s only lately that I find myself cutting down on sugar on purpose.
It was also only in Vancouver when I came to really take my mental health seriously. Back in the Philippines, I sought counseling and psychiatric help in secret, as my in-laws are a family of doctors and I felt that me seeking psychiatric help would be viewed negatively. I did not follow the prescription I was given then; in fact, I was incentivized to attempt to whip my depression in the bud by taking physical activity more seriously.
So when I found myself spiralling due to our migration, combined with family issues back home that resurfaced my childhood trauma, plus perimenopause symptoms, I took to the arduous, painful task of working on myself mentally. And I found that treating my mind came with understanding what was happening in my brain, focusing on eating, exercising and sleeping properly, and being okay with taking medication in a holistic effort to become a better me. Finding community was another social aspect I could not deny myself.
This holistic approach to my health helped me realize the meaning of the part in Niebuhr’s popular prayer that talks about “[accepting] the things I cannot change.” I continually learn to stop blaming others as my knee-jerk reaction and to stop and think about what I can change about any situation, and the answer is usually, painfully, me. Nevertheless, going through the initial pain saves me worse heartbreak and disappointment that I’ve experienced in the past.
The less popular part of Niebuhr’s prayer is equally as beautiful, but it’s not as well-known, for reasons that escape me. The poem speaks on taking things “one day at a time,” even “one moment at a time,” and gives a beautiful example of what Jesus did: “®aking, as he did, the sinful world as it is,/not as I would have it.” It’s a profound recognition of the extent of Jesus’ acceptance of the world and one’s role in it, to the point where he was able to sacrifice his own life.
So for me, constant improvement of my health in all of its aspects—physical, mental, emotional, social and spiritual—is the most important priority in my life. Focusing on health helps me become a better version of myself holistically, and I believe it’s what helps me critically think for myself and stop wasting time on less important things, situations and people.
Source:
Niebuhr, R. (2019, December 23). The serenity prayer. Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. https://www.archspm.org/the-serenity-prayer
—
Before returning from her summer vacation in the Philippines with her partner and three offspring this year, Neema Ejercito did not realize she still had so much to write about, such as the boredom she felt raising her eldest at her in-laws’ place when she and her husband hadn’t moved out yet. Or how surreal it was to watch her youngest learn to swim at the country club where she learned to do so as well. She currently wonders if she will ever write about being a mother to a bunch of plants, all of whom she adores and loves to watch grow as much as her kin.