Don’t you know that you are gods?
What is your most prized possession?
This question has always seemed bizarre to me because I’ve never really had a specific object that I cherished and didn’t — still don’t — understand how any physical “thing” could be prized above all others. After experiencing a few significant life events, I have come to realize that my previous way of thinking about this matter was due to a gross misunderstanding of the parameters of the question. I had always thought that a prized possession was a physical object because others always answered this question by presenting some physical object and recounting a life event that the object had come to signify. It wasn’t until recently that I realized that a prized possession is actually a thing you treasure, and that “thing” is not limited to material items.
Considering my newfound understanding of the question, I would say that a wellness-centered lifestyle tops my list of prized possessions, after my relationship with God, of course. Not my achievements and not my reputation. Not even my family, or even my friends.
My physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional wellness tops all, and I am not selfish for aligning my priorities in this fashion. Why? Because it is written that I am a god; I refuse to die like a mere mortal.
Here’s how I adopted this worldview.
For every athlete who retires from their competitive career, there comes a time when you notice that your body is no longer the force of nature that it used to be.
For some, this change does not mean that they have completely lost all fitness, rather that their fitness has taken on a different form because they are still training, just not in the way they used to. For example, an athlete might previously have been a powerlifting queen who has morphed into a 5am long run kind of gal. This type of scenario is ideal. Life has changed and this person’s athleticism has evolved such that they are still fit and thriving, just thriving differently than before.
For others — for me — the situation is less rosy. I fall in the camp of athletes who, upon ceasing competitive athletics, struggled to find a place for fitness in their lives. The reasons this camp exists are infinite, so I will only speak for myself here, though I know many reading this will identify with pieces of my experience, even if they do not identify as athletes.
As I struggled to create space for myself in general, and for my health in particular, the physical fitness of my body deteriorated rapidly, reaching the point that my joints and muscles ached all day, every day. Admittedly, I had graduated from college with a bit of tendinitis in my right shoulder from years of spiking volleyballs and throwing javelins, but suddenly my left shoulder and mid back joined the ache brigade due to the extended hours I spent hunching over my laptop and scrunching into tiny seats for red-eye flights. These aches were just the beginning as, over the course of two years, occasional shoulder pain evolved into persistent back, hip, and knee pain, as well as pulling a calf muscle while walking leisurely. Why was I 25 years young with a body that popped and crackled like a campfire if I squatted to pick something up off the floor?
Beyond decreased musculotendinous conditioning, there was also the deterioration of my internal health. This was the biggest surprise. Three years into my sedentary, career-centered life, irregular blood vessels started growing and bursting on my retina. For those who are not intimate with ocular anatomy, the retina is the photosensitive lining on the back of your eyeball that receives light and translates that into signals to the brain, resulting in what we experience as sight. Generally speaking there are no blood vessels growing there, and for good reason: the retina is where photoreceptors, tiny rods and cones live and give us the ability to see. Any fluid present on the retina damages those delicate cells, disrupting our ability to see with varying degrees of permanence.
This phenomenon is not uncommon in people who are significantly older — like 70+ — so why was a 25-year-old with no medical conditions other than myopia experiencing this? One word: LIFESTYLE. Stress, inactivity, and 10+ daily hours in front of a screen are a deadly cocktail. Add weekly travel and an inconsistent diet powered by coffee and takeout to the mix and I created a ticking health bomb that was just waiting to explode. And it did — quite literally.
Now, you may be wondering: what does one do when they have burst a blood vessel on their retina at 25 years old? First, you panic because you have no idea what the heck is happening to your vision and why lines that you know are straight suddenly appear wavy or disappear altogether. Then, you spend hours in ER because no one else knows what the heck is happening to you either, or even how to use the highly specialized equipment to look that deep into your eyes and develop a theory. Next, you end up at the retina specialist’s office where both the staff and other patients look at you like you have ten heads because they’ve never seen someone your age walking into that office for anything other than follow-up care for LASIK. When someone finally identifies the issue and you finally get treated, you grit your teeth and say as many Hail Marys as it takes to get you through all the needles they have to inject directly into your eye to get the anti-veg-F treatments (which kills blood vessels and are often used in cancer therapies) inside of your eyeball. And yes, you can see and feel the needles. Every single one. Every single time.
There was a span of about 18 months where I was visiting my retina specialist for treatment at least monthly, sometimes biweekly, so that he could keep his literal and metaphorical eyes on mine. Note: when the retina guy starts telling you that you need to make changes to your lifestyle for the sake of your vision, you know you have a big, time-sensitive, and life-altering problem of nuclear proportions.
So… what exactly do I want you to do after sharing this deeply personal story that only two others knew the full extent of prior to this writing?
First, don’t make your body or your mind launch nuclear missiles, hereafter referred to as “health nukes”, to get your attention. If you're reading this and thinking “well damn, at least I’m not at that point” then you are experiencing a false sense of security.
If you are not actively building your health, you are passively destroying it.
If you’re not engaging in some combination of strength training and intense cardiovascular training at least 4-5 times per week, you’re building a health nuke.
If you eat out more than 3 times per week, you’re building a health nuke.
If you deal with stress and other emotions with food, you’re building a health nuke.
If you look at a screen for more than 4 hours a day and do nothing to intentionally rest or strengthen your eyes, you’re building a health nuke.
If you are not taking time daily for yourself to be with yourself, while doing nothing else, you’re building a health nuke.
Now that I have removed the veil of false security and you are sufficiently disconcerted about the true state of your wellness, know that there are actions you can take to begin dismantling your body’s nuclear mission. It’s simple. Just do something, ANYTHING that gets you moving more every day and helps you reclaim time and space for yourself. This can look like:
Scheduling and attending your doctor’s appointments regardless of what’s happening at home or at work
Taking stock of what you’re eating and devise strategies to consume more foods that deeply nourish your body
Finding moments to steal away from the world and connect with yourself, like you would with the love of your life
Making excuses to move in any way you find enjoyable — go ahead and have that dance party at home because 80-year old you is watching
I am making this lifestyle shift seem relatively simple and straightforward to prove a point: that making space for yourself does not need to be a grand affair, like I once thought it had to be. However, the truth is that dismantling any health nuke will take time and every consistent effort you make toward that agenda, regardless of how small it may seem, will propel you along your journey until you get to a point where you can choose to make prioritizing your wellness a grand gesture to yourself and to everyone who loves you.
I urge you to start now, even if you’re in good health and especially if you have areas of your health that you want to improve. The time between my first creaking joints and the first blood vessels on my retina was two years. Between the first blood vessel bursting and my first consistent effort to improve my health was another five years. Over the course of seven years, my health went through cycles of improvement and detriment. I would start dismantling one health nuke, only for another to go off and completely derail my ability to dismantle any others, leaving me at extended periods of standing still, praying for God’s mercy.
It took seven years for me to find a way to systematically do something. Thankfully, the Lord has been kind and, in spite of previously misplaced priorities, I have been able to make strides in improving my overall health, as well as the health of my eyes, to the extent that I am beginning to engage in physical activities that I haven’t been able to enjoy in over 8 years.
Please do not wait even one second longer to believe that you are worth all of the time you spend on yourself. The most prized possession you have (after faith, for those who are faithful) is you.
Remember, it is written that we are gods. Let’s not die like mere mortals.
