Food for thought

I am not a scientist or any other sort of erudite who expects to be taken with more than an ounce of seriousness. I do have a voice, and all voices are meant for saying things. I also have a mind and all minds are intended to devise upon things. So recently I have come to a certain conclusion and I'd like to share it here.
The conclusion came as a sudden culmination of a few years of readings. None of the readings were done together, nor ever intended to add up to anything, but as with the discovery of penicillin, this realization occured not because intended, but as a fortunate accident because all the cues were there.
The most recent reading was the biography of LDS prophet and former church president Gordon B. Hinckley. President Hinckley lived to be 97 years old! Not only was he 97 years old, but he was active and traveling the world right up to that point. I also read the biography of LDS prophet and former church president Spencer W. Kimball who lived similarly. Other readings are scattered but concerned people who were physically active well into their 80s and 90s and often even into their 100s. Where does so much life and energy come from? What makes the difference? Is it chance, or are there lessons we could learn to prolong our own lives? It is my opinion that there are lessons.
The most striking of these lessons that I've felt inclined to agree with has nothing to do with medicine. It has nothing to do with nutritional diet. There are a lot of theories about long life and this has nothing to do with most of them. That is not to say I don't think nutrition and other factors play a part, but it is to say that there is an aspect to long life that I think goes without notice too often.
Hard work. That is a key. All of these men and women who lived to such advanced ages were working hard from their youth and were still working hard when they passed away. Now I don't know exactly what the connection is, nor the tie in. I do know that when you are in the service of God, full and resolute, that he will refresh you and provide for you the power and ability to serve. Beyond that, I don't know much. The quality of hard work is there in every example I've known. There's something about accomplishing things with our lives. The sooner we let-up, the sooner our bodies seem to let-up. When we are constantly pushing our ability to accomplish to the limit, each and every day, we find that our bodies slow down much quicker.
It's as if our bodies know how much we intend to do. When we spend a lot of time each day lazily watching TV our bodies slow down that much quicker. When they don't feel needed, they don't feel the need to continue. That would explain why someone who is constantly working themselves--heart, might, mind, and strength--would live so much longer. Their bodies recognize a need to repair, refresh, energize, etc.
Again, it's just food for thought. I don't know that I'd ever take the time to prove it scientifically. My own derivings are proof enough for me.

Good Better Best

Those who move about the world trying to be the best have made a terrible error and I herein hope to illustrate, clearly, their follies. It is then my hope that with a little clarification and a lot of encouragement we can all get on the only track of deep and lasting value--the track that leads one to be their best.When one puts all their hard work into being the best they've done two things and we'll discuss them in tandem. First, they've spent all that time and energy to, if they're lucky, become better at what they've chosen than anyone else. This is as fleeting as trying to hold water in your hands. Records are continually broken, or the world moves on and never remembers one's chosen vocation, trade, occupation, hobby, or sport. In short, the best will always be a fleeting achievement. Never something to have for more than a moment. Those who have spent their lives to achieve the best will find that they've achieved nothing of real note or lasting value. Second, they've spent all that time and energy to cheat themselves out of real accomplishment. The reason for this is that if one has given their all in an endeavor to be the best and they come up second, they will forever feel the failure. No matter how much growth one attains, if they do not become the best and that was their goal, they will again have spent their lives for nothing. I mean no real criticism, rather sadness for the many I see attempting this (though sadder still for those attemtping nothing).On top of all of this, the real nature of being the best means nothing more than assuring that those around you are worse off than yourself. That is essentially the point isn't it? And how many truly want to admit to that as their aspiration? If everyone ran 8 minute miles, then you would only need to run a 7:30 mile to be the best. Yet is that the best that man can produce? No. It seems a silly example, I'm sure, but it is resting, as we say, on the nail's head.Politically we see this in how often candidates will speak about their opponent. I don't care what any candidate thinks about their opponent. I'll listen to the opponent later, for the moment tell me about yourself. Do you see the illustration of the principal? So much of election time is spent by our candidates digging up dirt on each other and then presenting the dirt. If all that time spent mud slinging were spent on policies and self-improvement, how much better would our candidates be? How much better would America be if we all followed suit?Striving to be the best cheats us of our true potential. Because trying to be the best means we're already spending at least some time checking to make sure our opponents are still worse off than we are. That, as before, is time that could have been spent improving our own game, or intelligence, or such as it may be. The solution is simply to change the terminology. We must endeavor to be our best.An individual is the only true and honest judge of what best is. Only I know whether I'm giving it my all or not. Only I can limit myself. Likewise only I can be the impetus for doing better. When everyone in a society is interested in getting better together, that doesn't mean everyone has to be just as good as everyone else. It means, simply, that everyone is trying to be their very own best and at the same time encouraging everyone around them to improve. A society grows together in this fashion. The desire to be the best is an isolating one at best, because it means that you want your friends to be beneath you. How else could you be the best? The desire to be your best however, is an all encompassing one. It draws everyone to you, because we realize the healthiness of competition. Not for the sake of being better one from the other, but of seeing how we're doing, and learning from the other. I love to play against someone I will lose to, because it means that the more I play them, the more I'll learn about what I'm doing that could be improved. I don't want to be better than that person necessarily, but I want to know that I'm better after playing them than I was before.When a life is spent in the pursuit of being its best then there is perfect and lasting contentment at the end. Being our best is the only really achievable goal in any case, and it is the only one upon which a society can be founded. Healthy competition is good on the field, in school, or in the market place. But that is a complicated competition. The competition to be the best is a sadly simple one that involves cutting down those around you. A society founded by such people could never last, and we are watching what it is doing to America.In short and to summarize, we need more citizens who are willing to lose. More citizens confident in themselves, so that at election time we hear more good ideas and less criticism. So that in our sports we don't just watch for the best players each year, but we watch as the entire sport is improved. We need more citizens who understand that the only way for real growth is to work together, holding each other up. To be the best is for society to stand in one spot and, as in the game king-of-the-mountain, knock everyone else down as they try to get up to us . . . and it will always be a lonely spot at the top of that mountain.

Declaration of Independence

I take this opportunity to be one of the first and the few to declare that my happiness in life stands independent of the choices of a few.America has great hope in the new administration to come--and why not? Barrack Obama is a young and an ambitious man. He seems to know how to motivate the people (at least to put up signs and go out to vote). His very station as President-Elect has done wonders for America's image around the world. He seems to be putting together an able bodied cabinet and working overtime on solutions to America's current woes. Yet America, and perhaps Obama himself, are placing their hope in the wrong places.Like the scape-goats of ancient Israel, who once a year symbollically took all of the nation's sins upon them and were sent off into the wilderness to die (thus absolving Israel of all err0r and wrong doing), every year around November America elects its scape-goats. But ancient Israel misunderstood and so does America. They could not, and we cannot, hope to absolve ourselves of the need for virtue and charity in our lives by blaming all of our nations follies and troubles on these scape-goats, sending them out before the people to roast, and then passing them off into oblivion to waste away. That never solved Israel's problems and it hasn't/won't solve America's. The success of America is not in changing the government, but in changing its people. Yes, admittedly the government and its choices add numerous woes to our lives, but none that we haven't allowed. Are you following? We complain about lawyers, but there wouldn't be so many, who knew so many ways to cheat the law, if there weren't so many of us willing to sue one another. And why do we sue one another? To place blame (essentially . . . let's not get nit-picky). Putting the blame elsewhere is easy, but all that gets us is more lawyers--more people to blame. So why not admit that a good majority of our fortune and success--and that of America--lays within our own hands--the hands of its people.I declare, again, that I want to take responsibility for the success of my life, and to do so I must be willing to take responsibility for the failings of my life. I do this because I believe in liberty and independence. We are not simply the rubbish left over after the actions of our government. It is to us as Americans to be the cause and left to the government to be the effect--not vice versa. How do we go about this? I don't know. I don't have all the answers, but I can see a good place to start and that is in every American, individually. Stand up and declare your independence. Decide that the American dream is as alive as we want it to be. If we'll work together. If we'll care. If we'll work harder at building up and less at tearing down. Our government will never be any better than its people, and it will seldom be worse. I believe in the capacity of everyone for good. I believe in the capacity of everyone to exceed in any field, chosen or otherwise. I believe that a great good will come out of America--greater than ever before--and I believe it will come about because of her people (if they can make the necessary adjustments). I believe, and declare my independence to be able to do so.