Most people want to be or feel successful, to be financially free to do what they want when they want, to have positive relationships with friends and family members, to be comfortable, to be attractive to others, and to have fun. From a 30,000 foot view, that may seem pretty simple, but in reality it is often anything but. In reality, although we all have the capacity to continually make progress toward attaining each of these things, our ability to do so is dependent on how well we are feeling right now.
A large part of how we are feeling right now is dependent on our physical well-being, or our level of wellness. Charles B. Corbin at Arizona State University defined wellness as an interactive process of becoming aware of and practicing healthy choices to create a more successful and balanced lifestyle. This definition indicates that living well can lead to higher levels of success and balance and that it requires collaboration, steady action, research, self-evaluation, and a thoughtful consideration of options.
Culture is defined as the attitudes and behaviors characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group. In addition, culture is a powerful motivator of individual attitudes and behavior. A wellness culture may be described as the attitudes and behaviors characteristic of a group of individuals that are engaged in the process of becoming aware of and practicing healthy choices to create more successful and balanced lifestyles. Finding such a group of people who are visibly living healthy, successful lives and becoming a part of that group will go a long way toward helping us improve the quality of our own lives. This doesn’t mean that we should turn our backs on our friends and family members who do not share our positive attitudes about healthy behaviors, but it does mean that we should seek out those who do and avoid taking too seriously the attitudes of those who do not.
The cultures in which we immerse ourselves can and will influence our own attitudes and behavior. And though we might like it to be the case, the reverse is not always true, depending on how influential we are within our chosen groups. However, while we may not have the power to change others attitudes and behaviors on our own, we do frequently have the power to choose the ones that we surround ourselves with and control the way we allow the negative ones to affect us. Personally, I intend to be as healthy and fit as possible throughout my life, so I do make an effort to learn about options and make healthy choices. I hope that you do too and would be very happy to read any ideas you have for being as healthy as humanly possible.
