The past few years, aside from the realm of helping businesses and organizations become more competitive, I was drawn to literature of health. Maybe because I am 35. Though young still, I am no longer a young man = )
I visited the hospital during the last five years far more "frequently" than my first 30 years. In fact, I can not remember a single incident when I was ever hospitalized before I turned 30. But that's that. I thank God (and my family and the Philippine medical practitioners) for He has sustained me from my bouts with dengue and the recent totally energy sapping acute gastroenteritis = )
Maybe Ellis' going home was a nudge that opened my eyes to see the parallelism between living systems and man-made systems like organizations, businesses.
The first nudge was the show House, M.D. I was pleasantly surprised that the show's writer used similar techniques akin to industrial engineers problem solving techniques as the device in communicating to the viewers how doctors work through their diagnosis.
The second nudge was the plain fact that I am already in 30s and that my metabolism has slowed down a bit compared to my hormone enraged teens = ) So, I gravitated towards running even before marathons became the "in" thing in urban Metro Manila. As I started running every other day for at least 45 minutes, I bought myself two books about running. One book explained the science of running and the other book is a memoir of a Japanese fictional English-writer on how it has been ever since he started running some 35 years ago.
Then, there was these two wonderful and humbling "coincidences" when my amor for business crossed with medical and nuclear world. These were the time when I facilitated a vision-mission seminar for the Nuclear Regulations Licensing Safeguards Division of the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute and the Philippine Society of Medical Oncologist. As I was preparing the materials, I can not escape the highly similar dynamics present in living systems and man-made systems. That I was brought to the conclusion that if businesses study what is needed for a body to be healthy, one will truly get the line, "health is wealth". And I mean that both figuratively and literally = )
Then, as I delve deeper to what makes one healthy, I could not let go of the statement given by a doctor - "We are what we eat!" And was brought to the facts behind why diabetes, heart ailments and cancer are on the rise. It simply because of the things that we literally "feed" ourselves.
Apparently, when we do not eat fresh things like fruits, 50% of the time, our bodies treat what we eat as alien beings. By that, our immune systems goes on an overdrive to fight these "invaders" called "fast food nutrients". The result of these ongoing war inside our bodies - inflammation. In short, we get fat = ) Getting fat is an aggravating factor when it comes to health issues.
Have you ever wonder why our weight gain happened after graduation? Think, what were the type of food we were eating during college? Most probably, home cooked meals. And compare that to what we are we eating when we are already working? Most probably fast food and processed food.
I have nothing against fast food. They serve a purpose. They employ people. Give tax revenues to our budget-deficit government. Plus, they are easy to find and they are truly cheap. Tinatawid nila tayo sa gutom. But do we really need to make tawid everyday? = )
In any entrepreneurial initiative, it is best to offer a solution to a problem. Though the diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular incident numbers are already considered catastrophic in the realm of medicine, I think, we as a nation is still indifferent to this medical and health catastrophe. We are so indifferent that when one asks entrepreneurial students what business they will put up, someone will always say a fast food franchise or one of its cousins = )
Sad. Full stop. Also true.
But in the future, the numbers of dying because of these diseases will so big, the whole supply chain of our food will be re-thought and redesigned. And our economy will grow because of this.
The Japanese is once again proven right. The first step towards improvement is an awareness that a problem exists.
This dynamic is also true for our bodies. When bad bacteria and viruses invades our body, our body learns from it. And in the processes of learning, it is equipping us, and our immune system, to beat these bad bacteria and viruses.
The problems that our bodies and our organizations encountered and solved, made us, them, stronger... healthier.
"... why think like mere men?"
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