Thursday, January 20, 2011

Well-Being and a Spiral Staircase

Those who know me really well might think that this is a reference to the 1960's band that sand "I love you more today than yesterday".  While I have the first letter of each of those words engraved inside my wedding ring, I try to live by those words, and living by them can certainly enhance the well-being of my marriage which is such an important part of my life, that is not what I am thinking.

Instead, I think of well-being as a spiral staircase, because I keep coming back to the same issues--cardio exercise, physical exercise, mental health, spiritual well-being, diverse cognitive activities, friends, family, work, and others--and I just try to take the parts of well-being that have to do with each of these higher as I move forward each day.  So, the spiral staircase analogy is a good one--seing the same thing over and over again but rising and seeing it from a different perspective.

However, every once in a while it is also nice to get off the staircase.  In that case, I imagine my well-being as a spiral staircase in a round tower.  When I get off, I take in the same things, but I stop a while at a given level.  I explore things at that level before moving higher again.  I master things at that level and then I move on.

I find my friend's recent passing a signal to stop and just enjoy being where I am for a while rather than always trying to push higher.  As long as I am here on earth there will always be time to push higher, to go farther, and to go faster.  Sometimes it is nice just to take a breath, take it all in, and enjoy what I have.

Peace.

2 comments:

  1. All these perspectives happen in the 'mind'....what if you stop this thought process and just 'be'....and do things without being emotionally attached to it.

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  2. Doing things without emotional attachment is not in my nature.

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