Feature Article
PLANNING FOR YOUR FUTURE
from “The Care & Feeding of a Human Being” Vol. #1
By Robert & Kerrie Broe
Do you have a financial plan? Like most Americans, you do. Certainly, the only way some people practice fiscal fitness is RUNNIUNG up large tabs, STRETCHING a line of credit, or BOUNCING checks! But most of us have been drilled into planning financially for our future. Do you have a health plan? Planning for your health is just as important. Just as with a financial plan, your health plan includes assets as well as liabilities. How to get there involves growing your assets and minimizing or eliminating your liabilities.
Debt and savings—here’s how they look when it comes to your health. Spending more than you make and loading up on loans and credit‐card debt sacrifices future financial ease for immediate gratification, a situation not so different from sacrificing tomorrow’s health for whatever seemingly urgent situation exists today. Lessen your health debt with a sound health plan. A health debt arises when you have compromised longevity and future quality of life for some immediate gain.
Throughout our time on Earth, our greatest resource is our health. It gives us the opportunity to experience and enjoy life, to love and be loved. Future security does not come just from money in the bank. It requires feeling good, physically and mentally. No amount of money can buy the security that derives from enduring good health.
A true health plan is different from what most people think of. It is different from waiting to get sick and then using medical care to treat your sickness. Your “health plan” is different from health insurance. Most traditional health insurance exists to cover medical expenses in the event of injury and disease. Yet, referring to it as health insurance gives many people a false sense of security. The misconception that they are “covered,” that their health is somehow “ensured,” makes it easy to think that nothing else needs to be done. Understand the difference between treating disease and creating health. It is better to have health assurance, by taking responsibility for your own health.
It is also different from some people’s idea of prevention, which only takes the form of “early detection.” True prevention is not just having your blood pressure or blood sugar tested periodically to see if you have a problem. True prevention is living a healthy lifestyle that minimizes the chances of developing blood‐sugar, cardiovascular, and inflammatory problems. Use all the prevention and early detection that you are able to. Just don’t stop there.
Don’t assume that periodic medical evaluations are themselves going to improve your health. It is very wise for you to have a smoke detector in your house. But having a smoke detector has little to do with you and your family following principles and living in a safe way that minimizes the chance of starting a fire. Take a proactive approach to your health. Ignoring your health, while treating only symptoms of chronic disease, increases your health debt. Retiring your health debt means living in a way that optimizes your genetic potential, not compromises it.
It’s about Time
It’s about time—time you can add to your years. Time is like money: the biggest reason people don’t save and invest money for the future is that many of us spend all that we earn—and sometimes more. If you don’t save money because you have no money left over to save, the solution is simply to not spend all that you earn. One way to do that is to pay yourself first. That means to take at least 10 percent of what you earn each month and set it aside. Save it. Invest it. Pay yourself that 10 percent first, and then pay your bills and spend the rest as you choose. The 10 percent accumulates and multiplies into a substantial savings that can bring security and opportunity later in life, as long as you maintain your health so you can enjoy it.
Let’s apply this same principle to health planning. You can create health and quality time for your future by investing time now. Simply invest 10 percent of your leisure time each week into health‐promoting activities.
The time you invest will improve your health, decrease your medical expenses, and enormously improve your chances of having a future to enjoy. You will be increasing your health assets and decreasing your liabilities.
There are 168 hours in a week. We’ll consider the average work week to be forty hours and add another five hours a week for commuting, totaling forty‐five hours. Eight hours of sleep a night totals another fifty‐six hours for the week. Using conservative figures for eating three healthy meals a day—say a half hour for breakfast, a half hour for lunch and an hour for dinner—makes two hours a day or another fourteen hours a week. Time spent on bathing and hygiene varies, but say roughly three hours a week.
With these estimates, that leaves fifty hours a week of “leisure time.” Now, “leisure time” may not be the most accurate description, especially if you are raising children or have other time‐consuming obligations, but you get the idea. The point is, the averages provide you with fifty available hours each week. And 10 percent of fifty is five hours a week to invest in your health. Just imagine the dividends you could receive from simply investing five hours a week into improving your health!
If you think it would be impossible to come up with five hours a week to invest in your health, I suggest that first you take a close look at where your time currently goes. Most of us have black holes where time mysteriously disappears, the most common of which is the television. Second, consider the high cost to you if you don’t invest time in health‐promoting activities. The downward spiral of unhealthy aging takes a huge toll on your productivity and quality of life as well as increasing the deterioration and dysfunction that leads to chronic disease and its high costs.
To find those five hours, you simply make the decision to pay yourself first. Don’t spend all your time without first setting aside at least 10 percent of it for yourself. If you’re so consumed by taking care of other people and causes, consider what the airlines tell us to do in the event of a loss of air pressure in a plane. They tell us to put on our own oxygen mask before assisting others. Airlines know that if you don’t take care of yourself first, you may be totally useless to others, no matter how much you love them. Likewise, investing 10 percent of your leisure time is far from being selfish. On the contrary, it may greatly increase your ability to help others and prevent them from having to take care of you prematurely.
You probably use some form of time‐management system, such as a calendar, day‐timer, or PDA to organize your days, weeks, and months, which means it is simply a matter of scheduling five hours a week for you. Schedule the five hours just as you would schedule any other high‐priority appointment. Enter the appointment and then keep it.
Time is the one thing that money can’t buy. When we’re young, time seems limitless, but at some point, time moves to the top of our list of most valued “possessions.” We all want more of it. But if money can’t buy time, how can you obtain more of it? The exchange that buys time is attention to your health, a healthy lifestyle, and use of healthcare resources to optimize the function of all parts of your body for as long as possible. Time and health can be earned, invested, and experienced later. It’s not so much a goal of adding years to your life, as adding life to your years!