Today I want to talk about health and wellness and how people can obtain optimal happiness by working to improve certain aspects of their lives. Having good health is important to pretty much everyone. Why is it that when anyone talks about what they’re doing to get healthier it only includes getting in shape or eating better? These goals are very important, obviously, and people will become healthier by accomplishing them, but your physical health is only one piece of the wellness pizza pie.

To be completely well, one needs to fulfill multiple dimensions of wellness including physical, emotional-mental, social, spiritual, and intellectual. Physical wellness of course refers to your physical health. Lack of disease, having positive nutrition, and staying active affect your physical wellness. Emotional-mental wellness refers to your mental health. Lack of stress, anxiety, and mental disorders will benefit your emotional-mental wellness. Social wellness is affected by how active you are in your community, how many close relationships you have, and basically having people to love and care for. Spiritual wellness refers to your fulfillment in life. Having a strong, defined life purpose and solid personal belief systems will positively affect your spiritual wellness. Finally, intellectual wellness refers to the stimulation of your intellect. Actively fighting off ignorance through constant learning with an open mind will benefit your intellectual wellness. Check out the National Wellness Institute website for more information.

The main reason I bring this up is I feel like there are too many people out there under the impression that they can just do one thing right and they’ll be healthy. They’ll exercise every day, but eat like shit and work a crappy job they hate. Or they’ll work really hard to find fulfillment in their work lives, but then stay sedentary and always eat on the go. You wouldn’t buy a car and only change your antifreeze regularly. All of the different systems in a car need to be constantly monitored to keep it functioning properly. Your life works in much the same way. There are many aspects to your health that must be maintained in order for people to stay happy and healthy throughout their whole lives. With just one dimension of wellness missing, you will feel depressed, tired, or empty. This is your body’s way of telling you to watch over it. If you’re feeling lonely, you’ve been neglecting your social wellness. Go make some friends. If you’re constantly left out of conversations because you don’t know enough of the subject matter to follow, you’ve been neglecting your intellectual wellness. Go read some books or check out wikipedia. If you’re feeling lost and unfulfilled, you’ve been neglecting your spiritual wellness. Find a religion, or brainstorm on what your passion might be and start working for something that means something to you.

If you aren’t happy and you feel like life isn’t fair, there’s probably a reason behind it. Take stock of your life. Focus in on what’s the root cause of your problems. Odds are, its because you haven’t been working on improving your wellness. Don’t just give up and accept that you’re a miserable person and life sucks. There’s a reason your life sucks, so go out and do something about it. Fix your problems, and stop complaining that it isn’t fair. No one said it would be easy, it’s a constant battle. Once you start winning, however, you’ll feel it. Everything will get better, it just requires a little hard work. As soon as you accept life sucks, guess what? It does. I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Life isn’t easy. Everyone (mostly) has hard times. Not everyone gives up. There’s no magic pill you can take that will give you lasting happiness. Do you really want to be on the bottom of the mound, wallowing in despair and self-pity, or do you want to be on top, fingers cracked and bleeding from clawing your way out of the shit life threw your way, crying with the purest joy of accomplishment and success?

Take your life into your own hands, find out why you aren’t happy, and do what needs to be done to reap the rewards you deserve. And you do deserve them. Everyone deserves to see the true beauty and awesomeness this life has to offer. Don’t give up. Please. You don’t know what you’re missing.