"I have no more than twenty acres of ground," he replied,
"the whole of which I cultivate myself with the help of my children; and
our labor keeps off from us the three great evils - boredom, vice, and
want." ~ Voltaire
Life and
labour are synonymous. But we are trading our wealth for labour. People who do
not do physical labour are considered privileged and those who have no option
but engage in physical labour are considered unlucky. What we need to be aware
of is that too much labour kills and that too little labour also kills. Each
person should find according to his constitution how much labour and what kind
of labour is best suited for his temperament. We need to choose the right
labour –for our body, mind and soul...
The health
of our cells depends not just on the nutrition we get from our diet, the
stimulation it gets from various form of exercise but also from the intellectual
and spiritual nourishment it gets as part of the process of its existence.
Every breath
is a gift, we are guaranteed that the air we breathe-in will be exhaled but
have no guarantee that the next will be inhaled. This life supporting breath needs
to be rich in oxygen. Exercise help in ensuring we breathe in maximum oxygen.
It is said that we utilize only 10-15% of our lung capacity. An ace athlete
utilizes about 30% of his lung capacity. The deeper we breathe (Abdominal Breathing)
the more oxygenated will our blood be. A well oxygenated blood will carry more
nutrients from our diet to the 16 trillion cells of our body, in the process
aiding optimum cell energy of 70-90 millivolts.
Just as
there is a need to exercise for our body, so also we need to exercise our intellect
to ensure that our brain cells are kept in top working condition. Chess,
Puzzles, Cross- words, Sudoku etc helps to exercise the mind. This will help prevent Alzheimer and other
degenerative brain disorder.
And after
having jogged your body and mind why leave out the soul. Meditation, Prayers,
Social Work takes care of our spiritual nourishment.
And there is
yet another form of labour – finding the right Vocation, Career, and Profession that allows us to live it up. Person-Job fit is not just a management and
human resource (HR) term. A wrong choice of profession results in illnesses. Someone whose temperament is that of a
teacher, a nurse in other words a nurturer will find his/her coping mechanism
wanting in a stressful profession like the armed forces. An artist or a philosopher often fails as
businessman – not just financially but also in ways of health. Every vocation has
its own complexities and concomitant stress…an organism’s reaction and ability
to cope is a vital element of good health.
I wish to
reproduce a wise letter written by DR. S. Hahnemann the founder of Homoeopathy
that draws the essence of occupation and good health.
The next
letter to his patient, who was a tailor in Gotha and died at the age of
ninety-two, is so filled with advice that must be of benefit to everyone in
this age of haste that it is given here in full - (Monthly Hom. Review, Vol.
31, p. 617. N. E. Med. Gazette, March, 1887.)
My Dear Mr. X- :
It is true that I am going to
Hamburg, but that need not trouble you. If you do not grudge the few groschen a
letter will cost you can still have my advice when I am there. Merely write my
name, and Hamburg beneath it, and your letter so addressed will find me.
For the present I must say that
you are on the fair road to health, and the chief sources of your malady cut
off. One source still remains, and it is the cause of your last relapse. Man
(the delicate human machine) is not constituted for overwork, he cannot
overwork his powers or faculties with impunity.
If he does so from ambition, love
of gain, or other praiseworthy or blameworthy motive, he sets himself in
opposition to the order of nature, and his body suffers injury or destruction.
All the more if his body is
already in a weakened condition ; what you cannot accomplish in a week you can
do in two weeks. If your customers will not wait they cannot fairly expect that
you will for their sakes make yourself ill and work yourself to the grave,
leaving your wife a widow and your children orphans.
It is not only the greater bodily
exertion that injures you, it is even more the attendant strain on the mind,
and the overwrought mind in its turn affects the body injuriously. If you do
not assume an attitude of cool indifference, adopting the principle of living
first for yourself and only secondly for others, then there is small chance of
your recovery.
Men you are in your grave men
will still be clothed, perhaps not as tastefully, but still tolerably well.
If you are a philosopher you may
become healthy, you may attain to old age. If anything annoys you give no heed
to it; if anything is too much for you have nothing to do with it; if any one
seeks to drive you go slowly and laugh at the fools who wish to make you
unhappy. What you can do comfortably that do; what von cannot do don't bother
yourself about.
Our temporal circumstances are
not improved by overpressure at work. You must spend proportionately more in
your domestic affairs, and so nothing is gained. Economy, limitation of
superfluities (of which the hard worker has often very few) place us in a position
to live with greater comfort- that is to say, more rationally, more
intelligently, more in accordance with nature, more cheerfully, more quietly,
more healthily.
Thus we shall act more
commendably, more wisely, more prudently, than by working in breathless hurry,
with our nerves, constantly overstrung, to the destruction of the most precious
treasure of life, calmly happy spirits and good health.
Be you more prudent, consider
yourself first, let everything else be of only secondary importance for you.
And should they venture to assert that you are in honor bound to do more than
is good for your mental and physical powers, even then do not, for God's sake,
allow yourself to be driven to do what is contrary to your own welfare.
Remain deaf to the bribery of
praise, remain cold and pursue your own course slowly and quietly like a wise
and sensible man. To enjoy with tranquil mind and body, that is what man is in
the world for, and only to do as much work as will procure him the means of
enjoyment --- certainly not to excoriate and wear himself out with work.
The everlasting pushing : and
striving of blinded mortals in order to gain so and so much, to secure some
honor or other, to do a service to this or that great personage - this is
generally fatal to our welfare, this is a common cause of young people ageing
and dying before their time.
The calm, cold-blooded man, who
lets things softly glide, attains his object also, lives more tranquilly and
healthily, and attains a good old age.
And this leisurely man sometimes
lights upon a lucky idea, the fruit of serious original thought, which shall
give a much more profitable impetus to his temporal affairs than can ever be
gained by the overwrought man who can never find time to collect his thoughts. –
In order to win the race,
quickness is not all that is required. Strive to obtain a little indifference,
coolness and calmness, then you will be what I wish you to be.
Then you will see marvelous
things ; you will see how healthy you will become by following my advice. Then
shall your blood course through your blood vessels calmly and sedately, without
effort and without heat. No horrible dreams disturb the sleep. of him who lies
down to rest without highly strung nerves.
The man who is free from care
wakes in the morning without anxiety about the multifarious occupations of the
day. What does he care ?
The happiness of life concerns
him more than anything else. With fresh vigor he sets about his moderate work,
and at his meals nothing, no ebullitions of blood, no cares, no solicitude of
mind hinders him from relishing what the beneficent Preserver of Life sets
before him.
And so one day follows another in
quiet succession, until the final day of advanced age brings him to the
termination of a well spent life, and he serenely reposes in an other world as
he has calmly lived in this one.
Is not that more rational, more sensible?
Let restless, self destroying men act as irrationally, as injuriously towards
themselves as they please; let them be fools. But be you wiser!
Do not let me preach this wisdom
of life in vain. I mean well to you.
Farewell, follow my advice, and
when all goes well with you, remember.
DR. S. Hahnemann
P. S. - Should you be reduced to
your last sixpence, be still cheerful and happy.
Providence watches over us, and a
lucky chance makes all right again.
How much do we need in order to
live, to restore our powers by food and drink, to shield ourselves from cold
and heat?
Little more than good courage;
when we have that the minor essentials we can find without much trouble. The
wise man needs but little. Strength that is husbanded needs not to be renovated
by medicine."
Copyright ©
Robert Séror 2001 (
Its always refreshing to read your blogs, thanks for sharing
ReplyDeleteThanks Yvonne
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