Health is HAPPINESS – 2

There was this story of healthy businessman who had been a smoker for many years since he was a teenager. At the age of 50, he was diagnosed with a lung cancer. During his family’s last visit to him in the hospital, he told his wife and two sons, “The is the only time I realized that health is more important than wealth.” Also there was once a rich man, owner of a dynamic insurance company who committed suicide upon learning that he had cancer. These stories only show that truly, no amount of money can buy us health and the happiness that goes with it.

In my work as art therapist, I often meet people who are “unhealthy” one way or another. Some may be battling with diseases while others may be addicted to unhealthy habits. On the other hand, I have also had art students who were paraplegics and cancer survivors but they were happy because they have survived despite their illnesses; they may be physically incomplete but are psychologically and spiritually whole. Some live very simple lives but they are happy because they are free from any illness. These are people who have learned to value their health as God’s priceless gift.

In our conscious moments, to say that health is “happiness” is not difficult but the problem is, we are seldom conscious of this fact. More often, we subject ourselves to blind choices and habits that endanger our health and it is only when we cannot eat, see, walk, talk, hear, work or attend to the more important things in our lives anymore that we are forced to value our health again.