Have you ever wondered why people sell health and wellness products? It’s because a lot of us don’t feel healthy or well. I think it is because we’ve lost sight of what health and wellness mean in this emerging modern era. Health and Wellness are closely linked by definition, but not the same, and understanding the differences between the two concepts is crucial in order to reach happiness.
Health can be defined as your ability to survive. You are considered healthy when all of your body’s critical organs are functioning properly and can adequately support you on a day-to-day basis. Your health can be optimized, sure, but you aren’t required to in order to be considered healthy. To be healthy is to be able to sustain yourself, even if that comes at the cost of optimization. Even professional bodybuilders do not risk their physical health for the sake of optimizing the appearance of their bodies, even if it makes them happy. This is where wellness comes into play.
If health can be understood as your ability to survive, wellness can be understood as your happiness about survival. What good is a life if you cannot cherish the fleeting moments that make it valuable? Why do people pursue self-destructive behavior at the cost of their health? It is done in an attempt to rectify the difference between reality and desires. Wellness is the state of health that makes us happy, regardless of whether it is optimal or insufficient.
The truth is that health elevates wellness. You can be locked in survival mode and despise every moment of it. Inversely, you can also find contentedness in apathy and allow yourself to spiral. What you want is balance. When your desired state of being aligns with the inherent responsibilities of life, you will reach a zone of contentment with the consequences that come with that lifestyle, good or bad. And that’s where happiness actually lies. It’s not from avoiding problems, it’s about choosing your battles and embracing the challenges that they naturally bring.
Consider when you go to the doctor for a primary check-up. They reference your medical chart and document your medical history to recognize any patterns in your health to be mindful of. You are then able to utilize this information to make the necessary changes to your behavior in order to optimize your health. You also have the freedom to do nothing, but the gift of knowledge is to know that to do nothing is an option.
Consider conversations with your therapist. For those who haven’t, imagine conversations with a close friend or loved one who’s encouraged you to choose your happiness. And if nobody has played that role for you, then I consider it an honor to be the first to tell you that your life is yours to choose. Not what anyone else tells you it has to be. You don’t even have to be happy if you don’t want to, you just have to be you.
The benefit to understanding your health and your wellness is gaining the ability to recognize the self. Modern society moves much faster than humanity has ever seen, and we’re only accelerating from here. The ability, no, the privilege to slow down and ask ourselves “How do I feel” is slowly being lost to the advancement of society, and people are losing their grasp on what happiness truly is. For the sake of ourselves as individuals, the love we have for others, and the role we all play in society, we must reconnect with and potentially redefine what happiness means.
First and foremost, happiness is subjective by nature. The things that make you happy are not the same as the things that might make me happy, and vice-versa. Some people see happiness as a mindset, others as a moment to be cherished, preserved, and repeated. None of these are wrong answers, in fact, they’re all correct. The subjectiveness of happiness is what makes the pursuit of it unique for every individual.
That said, happiness may be a mutual pursuit of most, but it is a feeling at best. A feeling, just as sadness, fear, disgust, and anger are. Joy is merely the feeling that we pursue the most. Feelings, by nature, are not permanent. They are as temperamental as the weather and as predictable as hurricanes. The signs may be there in advance, but nothing is guaranteed until it happens. Preparing for a disaster can mitigate when it hits, but living your life in constant awareness of it can result in unhealthy obsession. If sadness can be a storm for us, happiness can too.
This means that the fact of the matter is that happiness can only be determined by the self, further meaning that we alone are responsible for making ourselves happy and determining what that is. That said, chasing happiness or waiting for happiness to hit us is like chasing any other fleeting feeling in the wind. A feeling can only persist over time if we perceive the events of our life to align with things that invoke those feelings in us. Happiness can only become permanent if we perceive the things happening to us as positive, and that is a choice.
Health and Wellness are two major aspects of life that help us to understand the self. In understanding ourselves, we become capable of identifying what makes us happy and pursuing it with confidence. The decisions we make in this life are typically the results of us choosing survival. Once we are able to survive, we choose to live. How we choose to live will determine how happy we ultimately are, not anything else in this world.
Moment of Clarity Wellness serves as a trailblazer for individuals, families, communities, and businesses to choose how they live and introduce wellness in their lives. Visit our website through the link in our bio or mocwellness.com. Our flagship product, the Off Da Zen Wellness Journal E-Book is on sale for 25% through the month of February. Follow us on social media @mocwellness for more wellness content and to join the Wellness Revolution!