Health Expenditure % of GDP
When it comes to health, most people naturally relate it to their own self. Actually, it is more than a personal matter. It is a family matter, a social matter, an economic matter. It is global. It is …
Health is a family matter. Time and again, we see that a family can be so badly affected just because of one person’s illness. Not too long ago, I learned of a story like so. An indirect friend, Michael, moved from Hong Kong with his family to reside in Sydney. The husband and wife both got very good jobs in the corporate. Two sons were doing well in school and university. It is a picture of a healthy happy family ready to explore the new horizon. But one year later, shortly after the husband, Michael, was diagnosed cancer, we saw a totally different picture. He had to give up his job. He kind of shrank by one size. He turned almost bald. The wife quitted her job because she had to take care of the husband. And, as to the boys, they would not have as much time on their studies as they did part-time work after class to help out the family. The elder one even considered to turn his full-time study into a part-time one in the following year.
Health is also a social matter. It is not easy to cope with the stress and pressure when you have a very sick person at home. At times, this might be the trigger for marriage breakdown, adolescent problems, depression, domestic violence, and the list goes on and on.
Health is also an economic issue. Do you know that the total global expenditure for health (or rather say the sickness industry) was US$4.1 trillion+ in 2004. America’s spending on health was 5.1% of the GDP in 1960, but rising to a staggering 15.3% of the GDP in 2005. If this is any indicator to our trend, we have a cause to be concerned. With the aging of the boomers, you can really feel the pressure is mounting.
For whatever we are doing now, we are handing a legacy to the future generations.
So, on reflection, you know that when you take care of your body, and your health, you are not only caring yourself, but you are doing a wonderful contribution to your family, your society, your country, and the world. Isn’t that nice? 
Live life, Junius
p.s. information on GDP related: http://masetto.sourceoecd.org/vl=3847189/cl=34/nw=1/rpsv/health2007/5-2.htm
Sometimes, we get easily carried away by things happening around us and we don’t realize that we have missed the big picture. In the long run, we pay a bitter price.
Take mine as an example. For a long time in the past, I was so focused on making money that I barely had much time for my family. My mind was so occupied that I often appeared as indifferent or insensitive. Looking back, my family had missed out a good part of our life together especially the bringing up of our two boys during their adolescence years.
Having a concept of holistic life is important. It helps us to keep things in prospective.
My model of a holistic life is represented by eight sectors joined together to make a full circle. You can imagine if the circle is full, it is like a fully inflated wheel. Of course, it would run very smoothly. By referring to the picture, you could evaluated your score from 0 (the center point), to full score 10 (the circumference) on each sector. When you link them together, you would see how round your “circle” is.
Some of the essential questions I would ask myself:
1/ Family – is it in name, or in substance?
2/ Health – am I settling for “not getting sick”, or attaining the optimal form and vitality?
3/ Wealth – am I building pipelines or carrying buckets?
4/ Career – is this still my passion, putting the money matter aside?
5/ Leisure – what else there I would like to do for pleasure?
6/ Relations – how well am I connected with my network of friends and contacts?
7/ Personal Development – do I put aside at least half an hour a day to nurture my knowledge bank?, and
8/ Spiritual – is there an even bigger picture beyond the earthly things?
You might come up with more questions, or you might even come up with a different version of holistic life altogether. It is perfectly alright. Whatever that is important to you counts. The main point here is to start us thinking.
Live Life, Junius.
Filed under General, health, passive income, relations, self improvement by .
Arriving at the magic number 10 in the posts here, I think it is time to count the beans so to speak, and consolidate my thoughts in order to move on from this point.
As I find out, blogging can be quite time consuming particularly if you want to explore the nuts and bolts that come with it. One would have to weigh up what is put in and what is expected to come out of it. I set certain expectations when I decided to enter blogging. The said expectations or purposes become even stronger since the day 1. I feel a sense of mission to continue. I hope to add value.
I want to document my reasons here so that whenever I look at this post, it would be a handy reminder to keep me in focus.
Firstly, it is about making awareness on the importance of a holistic life (more on it next time). When our road map becomes clearer, life changes for the better.
Secondly, it is the notion of “owning back our life”, more so for people who think they cannot get away from being enslaved to the boss or even their own business. It is great if we can help people think even a little bit more outside the traditional box and not following a world of sheer conformity. Life can be as beautiful as you make it happen. And, on that road, there is no failure.
Thirdly, I like the internet world because of its people power, and knowledge power. Running this blog is a good learning opportunity for me. Through improving on ourselves as a person, we can improve the world around us.
Lastly but not the least, I want to experience first hand the passive income potential that is so much talked about on internet marketing.
p.s. this post was written during my flight from KL to Sydney. The picture here was a convenient pick from the window. God always surprises us with so many beautiful things, if only we have a moment to discover.
Filed under General, passive income, self improvement by .
The keyword here is of course the “100 percent”. Surprisingly or not surprisingly, most of us do not love our own selves that much.
Over the years I have come across messages relating to loving yourself and all that. But, it really bought home for me this very question when I finished reading a book by Gay Hendricks. It is titled Learning To Love Yourself. Gay is a professor in counseling psychology and a world renowned author, as I come to know.
Back to the question. Why 100 percent is so important, you might ask. Allow me to share my way of understanding it. I am using “we” to mean each and every one of us (including myself of course) to make the points clearer.
We are carrying an invisible bag of rubbish, the “stuff” that we don’t like, don’t want to talk about, or even think about. It all relates to past experiences back to even our childhood days. It contains anger, hatred, guilt, argument, reprimand, shame, discontent, distrust, malice, and all those bad things. The problem is that this bag of stuff is getting bigger and bigger, and one day it will haunt us big time.
We need to learn to love ourselves live. By first accepting, and then loving the way we are is the only way to liberate ourselves and to give us the peace inside and out. We have to deal with each of these hidden feelings or stuff one by one. Don’t suppress it as we usually do. Recognize it, bring it to the open, experience it in your mind, feel it, and accept it, and love yourself even with it. It is kind of like shaking hands with these stuff, and letting go. Bottom-line, we love ourselves as a whole. It is a wholesome love, not selective love. I tried it and I could feel the relief almost immediately.
Everything happens for a reason. The things we encounter, good or bad, all help to mold us. It is part of our growing up. It completes us. Bad things might not be so bad after all if we learn and become wiser.
Love our enemy by starting loving ourselves. When we liberate ourselves by letting go all those negativity, and loving ourselves in a wholesome manner, our mind and heart are in congruency. We are in peace, at ease, and in harmony. We start seeing thing differently. We appreciate life more.
So much for the time being. I think I have more to say but later.
If you like to contribute your thoughts, why not drop me a line. Thanks.
Live life,
JuniusWong
p.s. some handy information on Gay Hendricks: website http://www.gayhendricksblog.com. His book Learning to Love Yourself (Transformation Series)
Filed under General, relations, self improvement by .
It’s like going to Disneyland.
There has never been a dull moment. On the contrary, there might be just too many things to try at one time. You don’t know what to deal with first.
It is like walking into a huge library ever imaginable, so huge that no matter where you go, you still cannot see the other walls. I love it.
Thanks to Wordpress, it has made the life of newbies like me so much easier. I can just put the different shapes and shades together, and I can create a picture of my own. Who cares if the picture looks a bit foreign. It is still my baby!
Only a few weeks down the track, I can converse with others like a veteran (just joking), frequently referring to jargons like plugins, theme, SEO, html, anchor link, and the like.
But amongst all the new excitement and adventures, there is one big blessing I find. It is people sharing with each other. It is incredible. It is so open, unselfish, and genuine. It is heart-felt.
Ever since I jumped onto this “blogging” wagon, I have been so blessed because I have been in the company of so many friendly people. A lot of them seem always ready to bend forward or backward to help for no pecuniary benefits. If it is not for passion, friendship, generosity, and all these good things, I don’t know what it is there.
Within a short span of time, I have come to know quite a lot of people. Some are in contact face to face, others still as a photo or a name. However, there is that invisible link that you can feel the people out there. Some would likely to be friends forever. Thank you all.
I am still wondering what Web 2.0 is about, among other things. But I know, life would not be boring at all if you are with the bloggers.
Is there anything particular I want to try? Yes, I would love to experience what it is like to have comments and advices coming in from all directions….. only if you would share with me one. Thanks.
Filed under General, self improvement by .
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