Rock Bottom

I have long understood that there are only two true constants in the universe – the love of God and change. It amazes me how much effort we make to avoid them. We simply can’t. In the first lecture of my coaching studies, many years ago, introducing the theory of adult learning, we met the truism that bounds our work ‘Adults only learn what they want to learn’. This is true both for individuals and for whole societies where culturally accepted norms seem to make progress almost impossible. Some years ago I personally reached ‘rock bottom’ when I collapsed into hospital for nine weeks. The UK National Health Service saved my life with emergency surgery followed by expert nursing care. I am forever in their debt. Strangely they could offer no explanation as to why I got ill nor make any recommendations on how I might avoid a future recurrence. It was almost two years later before I began to join the dots for myself and started my journey into Functional Medicine. As I reflect on the experience now I can see that even when I was at death’s door I didn’t realise that my illness was self-inflicted and afterwards I carried on my lifestyle as before. When today I see this behaviour all around me I feel great frustration. The essential difference, I tell myself, is that when I did discover a plausible explanation for my illness I set about addressing it. Among the majority of the population however life continues unchanged regardless of the health challenges that result. It’s as though we’re heading lemming-like for the cliff, hell-bent on our collective demise if not mass extinction. While we see individuals reach their personal ‘rock bottom’ as they struggle with addictions (mine was to sugar), we ignore the signs of societal decay that undermine our future and which could easily plunge us into chaos. We have a collective addiction to cultural memes such as expecting modern medicine to ‘have a pill for every ill’ or that society’s problems are caused by one group or another who are different from us. Such thinking absolves us of personal responsibility for our health and of the need to make a personal contribution to building the society we want to live in. Next month the UK will have a general election and pundits are busily arguing over the popularity of the several parties and their manifesto promises. Unfortunately the climate is one where many feel disenfranchised to the point of choosing not to vote at all. This is a cop out. Even with all its weaknesses the democratic system is our best immediate hope for building the society we want and avoiding the plunge into chaos that would result if our society truly hit rock bottom. Just as someone in recovery lives in the day, we too can aspire to serve the greater good of society on a daily basis. By all means cast your vote, but for more immediate benefit, consider the contribution you can make to your community today and then ask the same questions every day. There are many wars raging in the world today that give examples of societies hitting rock bottom. Instead let’s choose a healing path and make the investments in our communities that ease tensions, reduce stresses and allow us to appreciate the true gift that life really is.