PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY.

I’m fortunate enough to be in Osaka Japan at the moment and being here has inspired this next post.  For those of you that have not had the opportunity to visit this country, I highly encourage coming here and exploring for a bit.  This morning, with a touch of jetlag, I got up with the sun and decided to go for a run through the streets as a way of getting back in touch with the sounds, smells and sights of Japan.  My legs spent 12 hours on an airplane yesterday and were begging to be used so I figured I could kill two birds with one stone -  working out while taking in the lay of the land around the hotel from which I’ll be working for the next few days.

While running, I was pleasantly re-surprised at just how immaculately clean the streets are here.  With the exception of the occasional cigarette butt (90% of the males smoke here, yet there is far less cigarette trash here than in NYC and LA…go figure), there is literally no garbage here on the streets – no Big Mac wrappers, no beer bottles, nothing at all.  How is this and more importantly you ask, what does this have to do with wellness?  Great question, here we go.

When I was ten years old and on the verge of moving to Tokyo with my family, my dad took me aside and told me that when we got to Japan he wanted me to take a good look around and watch the people.  He said, “If you see someone sweeping the street watch them.  Their goal is to be the best street sweeper that they can be.  They take pride in their jobs, no matter what that job is and they take personal responsibility for the work that they do.”  Now at the age of 10, I thought that is was not nearly as interesting as  my Hot Wheels, however as an adult, and especially as a health practitioner I realize that what he told me was of profound importance.

“They take personal responsibility for the work that they do.” – what a statement!  Can you imagine a country as great as ours, only with everyone in it taking personal responsibility for their health?  Can you imagine a more empowered group of people than health conscious Americans?!  I cannot and you should not. 

Vow today to take complete responsibility for your health and wellness.  Take pride when you go six months or a year without a cold. Feel pride when you look into your medicine cabinet and don’t find anything that hasn’t been extracted from nature.  Take pride in your weight, your body composition, your diet, your exercise routine, your spiritual life and your relationships.  Take tremendous pride when your health is good and be equally as responsible when it is not.  Are you getting frequent colds?  How come?  Is your weight not where it should be?  What actual steps have you taken to change it – have you begun a workout program or altered your eating habits?  Is your mind cluttered?  Are you meditating? If the answer is no, then why not?   

Your health is most important asset, more important than money, success, and all things material as without it you can enjoy none of the things that you ignore it in order to acquire.  We’re all going to end up in the same place folks, how smooth the ride is and what shape we show up in is entirely up to us.  Entirely.  Vow today, right this very moment to take complete and total responsibility for your health and wellness.