Introduction: A Large number of Laws
Most educated folks have been aware of God's laws (contentious, confusing, conflicting and confounding), the law of Gravity, the law of Thermodynamics, the law of the Land, Parkinson's law, Murphy's law and so on. Most are named after mcdougal of a succinct observation described by the law. Laws vary from A (i.e., Aitken's law - describes how vowel length is conditioned by environment) to Z (Zipf's law - a linguistic observation that the few words are employed often but the majority are used rarely).
Since the wellness field grows and evolves, perhaps it's time for a REAL wellness law-or many such laws. If so, you will want to associate as many as possible with one's own name?
Grandiose, perhaps, but when I don't take action, somebody else surely will and that individual might just make a mess of it. Wellness in corporate America and elsewhere on earth is described and presented in wildly inappropriate and dysfunctional ways; you will want to eradicate the babble with a few transformative REAL wellness laws? Such laws, should they sound right and lead humanity to sounder thinking, might well contribute modestly to improved health and life outcomes.
In addition, one does not have to formulate a law that's named in his/her honor or even be familiar with a law to be afflicted with and to call home in respect with it. We've all complied with Galileo and Newton's laws about gravity, ahead of when we became aware of them.
Anyone who would like a law to bear their name should present some credentials. Mine are modest, simple but adequate for the honor. Around this writing, I have written 15 books, posted above a thousand essays at Seekwellness.com/wellness, 74 eight to twelve-page hard copy wellness reports commencing in 1984, 657 weekly electronic REAL wellness newsletters, at the least a thousand lecture presentations in a dozen countries while spending 43 years (since 1970) dreaming about the methods to and odds of vastly improved environments and cultures for greater health and happiness.
That has generated this moment-the time when I provide universe Ardell's two laws of REAL wellness.
Ardell's 1st Law of REAL Wellness: Random Chance, Natural Selection and Contingencies Trump All Else
Life's largest events often follow random, seemingly inconsequential small actions of which we remain unaware.
Secular rational freethinkers place stock in knowledge, commitment, reason and persistence in shaping and fine-tuning lifestyle habits. We embrace perspectives and behaviors on matters existential and otherwise designed to render positive states of enjoyment and well-being. We consciously seek happiness, freedom, physical fitness, love, mutually satisfying relationships and multiple skills. What matters most, what affects our successes and outcomes, appears more or less to be under our field of control. Alas, this functional and preferred method of thinking is basically illusory. You can find three much more consequential realities not under your influence in just about any way. Furthermore, these three factors render the standard and duration of your existence unpredictable and unknowable. They're: 1) random chance or fortune; 2) natural selection; and 3) contingencies.
Ardell's 2nd Law of REAL Wellness: Relative to Ardell's 1st Law of REAL wellness, other REAL wellness laws don't add up to much.
Considering the immense black hole power of the very first law, additional such laws play a modest role in efforts to shape life quality and longevity.
But, that does not obviate the case for added laws of REAL wellness. The fact is that a lot of the eponymous laws on the books are useless to many people but are yet of interest and even helpful for a few. I'm in my own eighth decade; I'm not aware of any occasion when I would have benefited from an awareness of Aitken's law or Zipf's law. I been aware of neither until I began the research for this essay. Ditto a great deal of other laws.
Relative to the 1st law above, this law and the ones that follow do not add up to much. Nevertheless, I hereby offer a few more, just the same. They can't hurt.
Ardell's 3rd Law of REAL Wellness: Finding your passion is fine but keep going-become great at it.
Since few folks enjoy royal lineage or handsome trusts that assure first-class travel in life with minimum dependence on labor, we ought to choose trades of sorts to pay our way through life. Thus, we're smart to adopt a long-term goal of studying and laboring at a trade that'll prove enjoyable and satisfying, as well as properly remunerative.
When this challenge is met, your method of earning a full time income won't appear to be work.
Thus the 3rd law - master a passion. Start by following varied interests and, after years and years if not decades of trial and error, settle into one of them, immersing yourself in it.
Be somewhat realistic but guard against premature realism-while not everyone can get elected, take the flicks or play in the NBA or NFL, a select few can. Focus about what excites talents and gifts. Put in enough time needed to qualify for Carnegie Hall (i.e., practice, practice, practice-take account of Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours rule).
The target here is that at some point in your career somebody, somewhere, for good quality or strange reason, can pay you to do everything you enjoy doing-because you are so spectacular at whatever it's you've honed to an amount of artful mastery.
Robert Frost expressed the notion of this law in his poem "Two Tramps in Mud Time:"
My goal in life is to unite my vocation
with my avocation.
As my two eyes make one in sight.
For only where love and need are one
And work is play for mortal stakes
Could be the deed ever really done
For heaven's and future's sake.
Ardell's 4th Law of REAL Wellness: Safer to chase after fun than to flee from pain.
Forget a whiff of prevention. That will indeed be worth a pound of cure, but a good grain of REAL wellness is worth a lot of prevention. Prevention is really old school-it's vintage medical thinking focused upon avoiding negative outcomes. Furthermore, there's no fun in working whilst not to see a poor outcome.
As opposed to preventing something, pursue positive results via proactive initiatives that amuse and satisfy. REAL wellness initiatives guided by reason, exuberance, athleticism and liberty are far more apt to be exciting and enjoyable. Such efforts will reinforce good intentions far a lot more than holding out for negative states not that occurs thanks to preventive strategies!
Naturally, SOME prevention is good. Contraception prevention is good, disease prevention is good-you obtain the idea.
Ardell's 5th Law of REAL Wellness: Scrutinize the role you played in just about any scene, good or bad, and make adjustments.
Make personal responsibility your default setting. Yes, initially it is easier, cheaper and easier at fault, excuse, deny and/or ignore responsibility than to embrace it. Such are the present default settings in most cultures, including our own. In the long if not medium range, however, it's healthier, more satisfying and more efficient to assume at the least some degree of responsibility. This method enables you to make adjustments independent of actions by others. Estate Your own actions would be the surest steps to supporting your interests.
Ardell's 6th Law of REAL Wellness: Dead, bloated rhino equivalents would be the staff of life.
All aspects of REAL wellness are not apt to be equally essential for everyone. We're all quite different in so many ways, though we're alike in many ways, as well. But, our circumstances, resources, capacities and the like vary significantly. Among the main elements for enjoying life must be the experience of plentiful, a dynamic curiosity about and life-long openness to new meanings and a commitment to and maintenance of an amazingly fit body.
Therefore, as well as mastering an awareness and acceptance of the truth of Ardell's 1st Law of REAL Wellness, make a point of always trying to look on the bright side of life. If the latter seems difficult, take comfort from what expressed by the mother of Woody Allen's character in Annie Hall. Having just read that the universe is expanding, Allen's character laments that he's too worried to do his homework. "Someday it will break apart and that will be the end of everything."
"But," his Mother snaps, "you're within Brooklyn! Brooklyn isn't expanding."
