New Year's Resolutions: 20 Ways To Add More To Your Life
When I qualified as a Doctor at 25 years old, I thought I knew everything there was to know about health and medicine. By the age of 30, I realized my medical training was limited and I didn't really know much about health and wellness.
So I went on a journey of discovery to expand my horizons and studied acupuncture, Chinese medicine, Functional medicine, nutrition, yoga and Buddhism. By 50, I realized my life training was limited too as my daughter (a teenager at the time) was pointing out "how stupid" I was. And now that I am 55, I realize I have amassed a lot of knowledge but have so much more to learn.
As I get older and hopefully wiser with every year, certain insights become clearer. Here are some of them gleaned from the wisdom I have gained from 30 years of marriage, having a 22-year-old daughter, 30 years of practicing medicine and being a perpetual student of life.
20 New Year Resolutions
- More Real Food, Less "Food-like Substances",
- More Fruit and Vegetables, Less Sugar, Wheat and Corn
- More Organic, Less Toxic
- More Chewing, Less Eating
- More Water, Less Soda
- More Recycling, Less Waste
- More Walking, Less Driving
- More Exercising, Less Watching TV
- More Outdoors, Less Indoors
- More Sleep, Less Worry
- More Calm, Less Chaos
- More Being, Less Doing
- More Consciousness, Less Ignorance
- More Smiles, Less Anger
- More Love, Less Hatred
- More Play, Less Serious
- More Letting Go, Less Holding On
- More Forgiving, Less Blaming
- More Generosity, Less Greed
- More Ubuntu, Less Me!
Ubuntu means what makes us human is the humanity we show each other. It is a Xhosa (South African) word and philosophy emphasizing community, sharing and generosity.
As Archbishop Desmond Tutu says
"Ubuntu is about the essence of being human, it is part of the gift that Africa will give the world. It embraces hospitality, caring about others, being able to go the extra mile for the sake of others. We believe that a person is a person through another person, that my humanity is caught up, bound up, inextricably, with yours. When I dehumanize you, I inexorably dehumanize myself. The solitary human being is a contradiction in terms and therefore you seek to work for the common good because your humanity comes into its own in belonging".
Let 2010 be the year of UBUNTU
Frank Lipman MD, is the founder and director of the Eleven Eleven Wellness Center in NYC a center whose emphasis is on preventive health care and patient education. His personal blend of Western and Eastern Medicine combined with the many other complimentary modalities he has studied, has helped thousands of people recover their energy and zest for life. He is the author of the recent SPENT: Revive: Stop Feeling Spent and Start Living Again (2009) and Total Renewal; 7 key steps to Resilience, Vitality and Long-Term Health (2003).
http://www.twitter.com/lipmo
