The KISS Principle For Living
A Simple Formula For Happiness And Health
I have a feeling that when I shuffle off this mortal coil and I’m on the “other side” contemplating what transpired, I will realize in a flash that life is really very simple.
In fact, here’s my thesis: life is blazingly simple and it’s we human entities who make it so, so difficult on ourselves.
Years ago, when I was struggling with my golf swing (still do but so what), I had a minor epiphany that golf was a metaphor for life; it takes you your whole life to figure it (golf…and life) out but you never quite get there.
Let’s break this down. First of all, take our physical bodies. Each of us is born with bodies that function perfectly for their purpose. Many holistic medicine practitioners will tell you that the body has the ability to heal itself without any intervention from prescription drugs.
Sure, if you suffer a car crash and are injured, then surgery and post-surgical pain relief are required.
But if you have something like the common kind of flu virus that comes around each year about this time, simple remedies usually suffice because the body’s brilliant immune system can take care of itself. Our physical bodies are such perfectly constructed machines of divine elegance.
So far, the KISS principle is intact. And for those unfamiliar with the acronym, it stands for “keep it simple, stupid.” But The Art 2 Aging doesn’t demean, so let’s go with “keep it simply simple.”
Of course, there’s no money in it for the pharmaceutical industry if our bodies defeat virus and bacterial infections on their own, so we are conditioned early on in life to believe that we need pharmaceuticals to get and stay healthy. And our family doctors, for the most part, are the agents by which the conditioning occurs.
The KISS principle takes its first hit.
Now let’s add in diet. What I mean, of course, by “diet” is what we actually put in our mouths three or more times a day. Here comes more conditioning because, through TV advertising, we are shown how much fun and satisfaction we can get from eating fast food, which should really be termed “fast poison” because that’s what it is.
Here’s a great medical article that documents how bad this stuff is.
Thank God our bodies are so adept at battling all the shite that’s in fast food.
But even our wonderful bodies can eventually be overwhelmed after years of abuse and, lo and behold, we have created obesity which now kills more Americans (and likely Canadians and Brits) than smoking.
Don’t take my word for that. The vaunted medical journal, The Lancet, says so.
Obesity itself is dangerous enough but what it produces is just as bad and maybe worse: high cholesterol (heart attacks), high blood pressure (strokes), diabetes (pancreatic cancer) and many more– it’s an impressive list of life-ending opportunities.
But if nobody ate crap food, then the fast food industry wouldn’t earn what it does each year in the United States: an astronomical 387 billion dollars.
Canada, being a tenth of the size in terms of population, comes in at a tick or two under 35 billion a year.
With the entire continent of North America experiencing obesity-induced health problems – and, by the way, Europe is rapidly catching up – we now have a whole diet industry that has sprung up, selling fad diets to help obese and overweight people try to lose weight.
Yes, there are fitness clubs and gyms, thank God, but that takes effort, intention and self-discipline; many just want a diet plan to tell them what to eat.
But, wait! Diets take sooo long! So, guess what? We have weight loss drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, Zepbound, Mounjaro, Saxenda, Adipex, Suprenza and several more (with even greater choice coming!).
Today’s “health conscious” consumer has as much choice in weight loss pharmaceuticals as he/she does in fast food choices. And Big Pharma rejoices.
Anyway, the point is we have gone way off the reservation when it comes to using the KISS principle on our physical bodies.
Now, what happens after we become physically unhealthy, is we often become depressed which can lead to chronic overeating and the vicious cycle begins. So, it’s time for an anti-depressant. Hurray! Big pharma is there to help! Another shot to the head for the KISS principle of simple living.
Enough of the bad news; we all know what the problems are. What’s the good news?
Well, the good news is that there is plenty of right-thinking advice on how to live lives that are physically and emotionally healthy.
Take your pick. Some of my favourites are yoga, meditation (I initially mis-typed and wrote “medication” – Freudian slip?), long walks on sunny days in nature, weights.
In other words, exercise. These are pretty decent components for practising the KISS principle in life.
Exercise when one is older is absolutely paramount and your first step to living a healthy and fulfilling existence later in life. There’s no getting around it. And it can be fun, too, especially if you are doing it with others. Yoga classes are perfect examples of group fitness.
They also provide the all-important social aspect when one is older and perhaps living alone.
Diet is second only to exercise for those of us who are older, especially if we have lived on the wild side for far too many decades dining on junk food.
The combination of exercise and diet creates a healthy human body and mind. So, living a healthy life and lifestyle is incredibly easy, not to mention critical.
It just doesn’t get any better– or simpler– than that.