I was driving to work one early morning in Munster, Indiana when I noticed a flock of Canada geese flying against a beautiful backdrop of a golden orange rising sun that was slowly and eagerly peering over the clear horizon. The picturesque scene was even more poignant as I observed that the geese were flying in a perfect reversed V-formation. One seemed to be the leader of the pack, at the very apex, and the rest, in an orderly fashion followed in a reversed V-formation. At one point, another goose flew ahead and assumed the “leadership” at the apex of the V. When the “leader” gets tired, another flew to the apex, the former “leader” goes behind the flank. They seemed to each take turn. Everything was smooth and easy flying, and quite orderly.
The reason came back to me as I recalled a book I once read. Birds, in general, have the instinct to know that the wind they fly against offers most aerodynamic resistance if they fly alone or on a straight frontal line. Flying in a reversed V-formation, with the apex cutting through the headwind, makes it a lot easier for the others behind to fly. The “leader” at the apex gets the most wind resistance, and less and lesser for those behind, who are covered by the birds in front of them, and so on down the line in their V-formation. When the bird at the apex gets tired, it goes behind another bird, and another bird flies to the apex to shield the rest from the strong wind resistance. And all of these appear to take place in an organized fashion, with no hesitation, no delays, no bickering, no pushing, no wrangling, as if each bird knew precisely its individual role and was graciously compliant.
How I wish we, humans, self-proclaimed the most civilized and most intelligent of all creatures on this planet, would be as “civilized, compassionate, considerate, and orderly”` as these birds. Imagine how wonderful it would be if we, brothers and sisters of the world, would stop fighting, hurting, destroying and killing each other, and instead, understand, empathize, accept, help and protect each other like these flying creatures of God. What a wonderful world it would be!
Obviously, the transformation will not be easy, as the history of man has so far shown us. But human beings better start soon, even a little bit each year or each century, before we blow each other up, together with Mother Earth, into shameful particles, bits and pieces, of historical ashes in the galaxy. And the only legacy our specie will leave behind then is our stupidity.
Let’s savor life
In this topsy turvy and muddled world of ours, where stress is the usual order of the moment, we need a disciplined mind to keep and maintain our sanity from day to day.
For hundreds of years, philosophers, from Plato to Aristotle, Aquinas to Descartes, portrayed to the world their intellectual and moral struggle in search for the meaning of life, destiny, truth, discipline and inner peace. Yoga, the art of living, and transcendental meditation, practiced in the East for thousands of years, has been shown to have soothing, calming and healthy effects on the mind and on the cardiovascular system.
Indeed, the marvelous human body produces endogenous auto-regulated chemical substances, triggered and controlled by the mind, that affect our entire system as exogenous drugs do. It is, therefore, paramount that we discipline our mind and body in order to take full advantage of this unique and beneficial built-in “pharmacy” in each of us.
One way to discipline our mind in dealing with daily stress in life is by behavioral modification with philosophical reinforcement. Expressing our gratitude to the Almighty when we wake up each morning, for the health and safety of our family and ourselves, for the home we live in, the food on our table, the job we have, and all the wonderful graces we have received over the years, provides us a more confident and stalwart outlook on life as we begin our day to face the world.
While our life is not perfect, we must realize and remind ourselves every day how lucky we are to be blessed with this bounty, compared to the more than half of the population of the world who are not so fortunate. These few seconds of bedside meditation each morning alone will instill positive thoughts in our minds at the very start of the day, enough to initiate the flow of opiate-like polypeptides, like enkephalins and endorphins, throughout our body, making us feel good and happy. And we do not even have to spend money for these “fixes” or go to the drug store for them!
Life is only a dream, and a fleeting one. Let’s live it fully before we wake up one day and realize that we have missed it all. While we have time, we have to think and take care of ourselves, and not only of our loved ones. We should also pamper ourselves every now and then. We should do things we have always wanted to do, those that give us pure pleasure and joy, take the trips we have always planned to take, enjoy the wonders of nature, make people laugh, play with a child, and smell the flowers along the way. And let’s remember to “eat the dessert first,” because life is not eternal.
Many of us seem to see and feel only the negative things in our lives. Most often we forget to count our blessings. Like we train our physical being to be strong and healthy, so must we discipline our mind to learn how to cope with daily stress, and to preserve a sense of joy and inner peace as we live each day.
Life is too short. Let us not endure it. Let’s enjoy it.
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Philip S. Chua, MD, FACS, FPCS, Cardiac Surgeon Emeritus in Northwest Indiana and chairman of cardiac surgery from 1997 to 2010 at Cebu Doctors University Hospital, where he holds the title of Physician Emeritus in Surgery, is based in Las Vegas, Nevada. He is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, the Philippine College of Surgeons, and the Denton A. Cooley Cardiovascular Surgical Society. He is the chairman of the Filipino United Network – USA, a 501(c)(3) humanitarian foundation in the United States. Email:[email protected]. Please visit www.xlibris.com and search for the book, Let’s Stop “Killing” Our Children which contains a compilation of articles from this column.
