Life is Too Short To Live With Disease

For a very very long period of my life, I believed I was cursed with a disease to carry around with me. I had chronic back pain as a 19 year old, and in all honesty there was no sort of light at the end of the tunnel for me. I shit you not, it felt like I was walking around with a weird shade of gray filter over anything and everything. Life was dull, all I wanted back was my health, I couldn’t do any of the things I loved, and every slow movement had to be methodical and slow just to make sure I didn’t tweak my back. I had “old man-back syndrome”.

It was hell, and I wish I knew now what I didn’t back then. All I had to do was lock in, eat right, avoid bad habits like drinking, undersleeping, and vaping/smoking, and I would have been just fine. But for some reason I thought all of those guilty pleasures were more important and more profitable (“fun” wise if you will) than anything I would ever do in my life. And I didn’t even partake in majority of them as much as some of the other colleagues and friends I went to school with or knew. I already had one foot out, but I just couldn’t commit to fully focusing on health.

But it is more than that, not only did I not commit to fully focusing on health. Rather, I didn’t have the education and knowledge of what was to come if I did. Truth be told, I did not believe I could improve my life. I did not believe in a brighter future for my body and mind. None of that was a possibility, so when I constantly heard that voice in the back of my head telling me to fully lock into this focus. The only thing I could think of was that there was no way trading what “fun” I have now for that would be worth it. I had no knowledge of what brighter days could come.

I’ll keep this one short so I don’t go too far down a rabbit hole. But I promise you that living life with disease and in poor health is holding you back from SO many things. It holds you back from pursuing some of the greatest feats that your body could accomplish. It holds you back from the pure clarity of mind you have when your body isn’t constantly in pain, your brain isn’t in a foggy dreamland from lack of sleep, you begin to have a reason to get up in the morning, and you start to align yourself with what you are meant to do in life. Or at least, that is what has come from that change in my life.

Life is all about perspective in my opinion, and if you are only exposed to a certain amount of perspectives - then you will live a life boxed into one mindset. Maybe that is good for your situation, as you have a strong core group of people that support you and do what is best for you. But maybe you have a group of people who don't, and maybe they don’t even know what is best for you. This goes the same with doctors, teachers, colleagues, friends, and family. Sometimes doctors get it wrong, sometimes friends give you advice based on their lives, not yours, and sometimes your colleagues are more in it for themselves than they are for you. All things to equally consider. If you don’t surround yourself with people who do take care of themselves, then the likelihood of you doing that as well is undoubtedly high.

Nonetheless, the brain is directly affected by the body and vice versa. The stronger you have your body, the stronger the brain, and the more you that you can experience. If you have felt like you are less of yourself, falling behind in general in life, and just confused about what path to take next. Lock in on your fitness goals for a while, lock in the sleep, lock in the workouts, lock in the nutrition, and watch that gray filter lift from your view.

Because remember, life is way too damn short to live with disease!

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk :)

Best,

Joshua Stiffler