ZEST IS A SMALL WORD, BUT WITH A MASSIVE MEANING
“Everyone has to take
self-care,” the gentleman said, “Others can only encourage you, remind you or
try to motivate you… Finally, you have to get up and do it for yourself.”
I was commuting to
my workplace in his car. “How is madam (his wife), sir?” I had enquired. She
had been a highly-diabetic patient for long and been in and out of the hospital
many times. Her fragile health-condition had made him strikingly aware of the
need for self-care. So, he had been taking good care of his own health through
regular walk and diet-control. But, when it came to his wife’s, he had not been
able to get her do the same… “She simply doesn’t want to walk,” he said this
morning with anguish. He added, “When
children do not live with you, you are on your own. If you do not take care of
yourself, you put strain on your partner… This applies to husband and wife,
both. Doctors and children can only remind you over the phone or when you meet
them… At the end of the day, you need to do it for yourself.”
The gentleman is a
professional and leaves early every morning. He works for long hours… He is
already 60-plus. “Everyone should have a schedule for the day,” he told me this
morning, “That alone is a major self-care.”
We both had left
home, this morning, at 7.40… We both had to attend to our work at 8. The very
thought that we have to attend to our work early the next morning, keeps us
very alert, fit… zestful. It makes us look forward to the coming day…
Zest is a small
word, but with a massive meaning. For, when zest goes from life, we stop
looking forward to the coming day!
GERALD D’CUNHA
Pic.: Madan Manik
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