Friday, September 15, 2017

Wealth is useless without health


Now I believe the greatest wealth anyone can have in this world is not connected to property such as yachts, private jets, land or buildings. The greatest wealth anyone can have while he still has the breath of life is good health.


I arrived at this conclusion after spending the last two weeks in hospital where I saw and heard people cry day and night in excruciating pains and watched others die because of health-related problems that could have been avoided with better living. Conditions like diabetes, lung and kidney diseases, blood pressure, overweight and high-sugar levels are mostly a result of poor eating habits, smoking, lack of exercises and generally careless living. 

A friend who lives in Chicago told me junk food is the cheapest there; only eaten by those who cannot afford a healthier meal. But in Uganda junk food is expensive and mostly eaten by those with a lot of money to spend. I shudder every time I pass by fast-food restaurants and see my fellow Ugandans heartily gobbling chips and chicken worth 16,000 shillings and washing them down with soda when a healthier meal of beans and matooke at a typical restaurant next door is 4,000 shillings. 

There never have ever been a time to start living healthy like now! We must choose the food we eat deliberately, we must do exercises, we must sleep well and we must surround ourselves with optimists who lift our spirits, not pessimists who make us weary with their negative talk. 

Life is short and its sinful to shorten it further with careless living. Not many people have the means to meet the often sky-high hospital bills, even those who do are many times proved by the merciless diseases of the body that their money can't help them. 

I leave you with the words of an anonymous wise man who said, "Wealth is useless when your health becomes useless."

No comments:

Post a Comment