Part I Quality of Life

Part I:     Quality of Life   

 

 Today, Quality of Life is measured statistically in a number of life aspects and countless of their indicators: social, economic, technological, psychological, health, emotional, intellectual, cultural, etc.

Despite the countless criteria by which we tend to measure and determine the Quality of Life, harmony and balance are perhaps the most important signs of well-being today. A balanced lifestyle, with a harmonious regime of relationships, nutrition, movement, work, relaxation and rest, maintains hormonal balance and good tone of all organs in our body. Even if we don't realize it, in practice:

 

Our ability to achieve good concentration in the activities we perform, to be energetic, healthy and in a good mood are indicators of a good Quality of Life.

 

Quality of life is a strictly individual concept, which often depends on: the way of life we ​​lead; the habits we have created; the type and quality of the food we consume; the environment in which we live, work and rest; but also the way we perceive and react to ourselves and the world around us. An important role is played by the understandings that we have adopted or imposed as a model of thinking and way of life, and sometimes or more often become traps for our well-being. We are accustomed to measuring success in life, through personal status in society and family, but also through material status. Since we do not have an universal unit for measuring of well-being, we often use the objective comparison of someone’s success with the failure of the others as a measure of our subjective understanding.

Above all, however, consciously or not, we determine our success by the degree of our satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Therefore, the most important and decisive for the quality of our life remains the answer to the question:

How are you? Here are some simple indicators with which, consciously or not, we often show the degree of our well-being:

• mood,

• the disposition of the spirit,

• the energy with which we do things,

• emotionality,

• the quality of sleep,

• skin condition,

• weight and figure, etc.

• our neatness and appearance,

• clothing and color selection,

• the purity and aroma we emit, etc.

 

What is the connection of these indicators with the Quality of our Life?

Regardless of the lifestyle and standard of living we maintain, often a physical ailment, such as a headache, can worsen our mood and lower our tone. It is difficult to notice that the situations we find ourselves in are a consequence of our previous thoughts, actions and decisions. And when we face a difficult moment, we attribute the unpleasant event to chance, bad luck or fate. (p.32,192)

 

We are used to automating our thoughts and actions to the level of their unconscious execution, in order to master and save time in everyday life. And when we decide that it is time for change and improvement, we again strive to cultivate and automate our new good skills in habits, without trying to apply them consciously. (p.43,47,66,161)

Don't we think that Awareness is a laborious process that takes our time ?!

 If we go back to the prehistoric man who brought us to today's socio-economic prosperity after tens of thousands of years of diligence - this is undoubtedly so! However, if we look only a hundred years ago, we will see that precisely a few moments of consciousness created electricity, lighting, and wireless data transmission around the world. A few Sparks of Enlightenment came after thousands of years "spent in the dark" ...  If we can see and realize the causal relationships that motivate our thoughts, actions and decisions, we will find that our lives are governed by far higher energies and forces. They often "create problems" for us when, consciously or not, we try to reduce them to our level of perception and understanding, instead of climbing a few steps up our Consciousness to reach the knowledge they bring us. (p.13,36,157,159,170,190)

For example, to diagnose a condition, modern medicine measures certain blood count biomarkers, and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) examines the patient's appearance and emotions. While modern medicine recognizes diseases with the help of biomarkers, the indicators of ancient TCM knowledge speak of symptoms of an impending dysfunction long before the disease occurs. (p.12,27,112,148)

Table 1 compares the indicators for quality of life of both areas of medicine:

Table 1: EXAMPLE INDICATORS OF QUALITY OF LIFE, ACCORDING TO THE EMOTIONS AND HABITS THAT WE SYSTEMATICALLY MANIFEST IN OUR DAILY

Organ system in imbalance	Physiological function	According to Traditional Chinese Medicine		According to Conventional Medicine
		indicator for dysfunction	cause of dysfunction	biomarker	cause of dysfunction
Liver	detoxification, metabolism, hematopoietic system (blood nourishing)	restless sleep, loss of appetite, itchy skin	anger, spicy foods, lack of diet, overeating in the evening, exhausting walking, watching	cholesterol liver enzymes	alcohol, fatty foods, fatigue, weakened immunity, disease
Heart	blood circulation	impaired memory, edema	excessive emotionality salty or sweet foods	Blood Pressure	high cholesterol, lack of movement
Spleen, Pancreas	Digestion, circulation, (immunity)	thirst, lack or excessive appetite	too much thoughtfulness, too much sitting	insulin	excessive carbohydrate intake
Lungs	breathing, oxygen charging	fatigue, tiredness	grief, lying down too much	hemoglobin	lack of fresh air, improper breathing, genetically conditioned
Kidneys	regeneration, metabolism, alkaline-acid balance	drowsiness, cold or hot limbs	fear, excessive standing	creatinine	insufficient water intake, excessive protein intake

Note: these indicators are used for comparison, and do not present any disease condition or symptom of such.

 

We are accustomed to looking for the external causes of our ailments and failures, without realizing our merits and our role, to one degree or another, in terms of our deteriorating quality of life. It is this approach that makes the dilemma of "need and satisfaction" decisive in our lives. By resolving this dilemma, we have also engaged economic areas such as Marketing, Advertising and Sales. Ultimately, our health and well-being depend on the way we perceive and understand things, but also on the way we accept and apply them and the place we put them in life and in relation to ourselves. In order to better understand the factors that govern our quality of life, the degree of satisfaction and our personal motivation, it is necessary to pay attention to the spheres of life in which we exist, and which, in one way or another, determine the nature of our manifestations, perceptions, consciousness, realization and development.

We believe that life is a cycle consisting of (p. 21) birth, childhood, youth, maturity, old age and death, and we liken it to a bicycle that we ride until we grow up, and then we throw it in the closet.

We often lose the joy of riding this Wheel before we notice that we have not yet removed the "auxiliary wheels" that prevent us from truly enjoying this pleasure for as long as we wish.