In the final installment of this four-part series, everything will come together around what truly motivates me: Health. There is so much avoidable suffering in the world due to premature onset and rapid progression of entirely preventable disease. There are also missed opportunities to experience life on our terms because of health-related limitations that simply don’t need to exist. So why spend so much time thinking about death if what I am after is improving health?
Over the years I have noticed something. There is no better “wake up call” than a near-death experience, the loss of, or even just observing the precipitous decline of a loved one. It becomes much more obvious why taking care of our health is important when we have watched it disappear. In the same way you may not appreciate items of daily living, say, your shower, until you do not have it, many of us take our health and well-being for granted. The single best way to combat this complacency is through negative visualization, as the Stoics would call it, where I like to focus on death and decline. If we have imagined, and therefore in some small way experienced, our inevitable decline and ultimate death, we can find the motivation we need to optimize our lived experience. This means living an examined life with heightened awareness throughout our life, while planning for the best future possible doing the things we love with the people we love.
My thesis is as follows. Embracing death and the inevitable decline that comes with aging, as opposed to fearing or ignoring both, is a fundamental starting point for everyone. Once this is done, it is easier to identify what is important in our life. This realization will allow us to spend our time doing things we truly value, and in turn, we will be motivated to continue doing these things we value as well as we can and for as long as we can. The only way to do this is to optimize your health for your specific goals. And to optimize health, you will have to Compete. It will take effort, focus and dedication, but the reward is a more fulfilling life where you control the narrative, not your limitations.
Following this exploration of death, I hope that you will continue the journey with me to improved health and disease prevention!
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