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By Barry Abel
Building A Solid Foundation for our Health
There’s a fundamental approach to living long and well.
A society will pass along its wisdom generation to generation, often through stories more easily understood and internalized by children. Among the more obvious examples, the tale of the three little pigs who built houses to protect them from the “big bad wolf.â€
The lazy one built his house of straw; the one who hadn’t thought the problem through built his of sticks; the one who wouldn’t take shortcuts built his of brick and only the latter survived – a lesson more easily accepted because it came as a story of cute animals. But if, for the wolf, we substitute Covid-19 or any of the tests that come in life, especially as we reach our senior years, the parallel is obvious.
Looking at a more modern teacher, legendary basketball coach John Wooden famously began each season teaching his players how to put on their socks. These young men, being among the very best at playing their game, viewed their teacher with amusement. This was a quirk to be tolerated to get to the point when he would offer his real wisdom about how to improve their skills and more effectively play the game they loved.
Those who needed to understand things, to know the why in addition to the what of them, figured this odd introduction to this famed coach probably was so they would avoid getting blisters on their feet which would, of course, hinder their ability to play.
It wasn’t until years, even decades later that they began to realize that wasn’t the message at all. Coach Wooden’s message was there are no shortcuts. If you want to do something right, you have to do it right from the beginning, every step of the way. You can’t build something solid leaving weaknesses in its foundation, not if you want it to be successful or as strong as you need it to be.
If we all want to successfully navigate the years, and especially these times of pandemics and constantly changing variants of Covid-19, we need access to solid, valid information. In a time rife with the intentional seeding and spreading of misinformation, in some cases in operations launched by nations antagonistic to our country, where can we find what is correct?
As part of our Discovery series, Village in the Village/Corrales (ViV) explored this important subject and we gained some guidance from experts.
There are good sources of sound medical and health information, places to check and verify things we hear and read about our health. Based on expert recommendations, ViV has prepared a handout on the subject and will email it to you upon request. Write to us at CorralesViV@gmail.com for a copy.
The hand-out includes advice from the Medical Library Association (MLA) on how to check the credibility of websites purporting to offer medical advice as well as the URLs (internet addresses) of highly credible sources of medical information.
Corrales is a place where many have been blessed with longevity. But with age come additional questions —how do I best take care of myself? Could this latest challenge be a sign of something more serious? Is this really the best way to avoid more serious complications?
You are a marvelous, even miraculous, success story —just by being. You are in charge of that story – the story of yourself. Having ways to find and take advantage of the information you need to continue that story is essential. Helping you to do so is why ViV exists in the first place.
Barry Abel is a ViV member and active volunteer. For more information about ViV, visit the website at VillageintheVillage.com