Living in America can make you sick

Gary R. Collins reports some interesting findings about the American lifestyle. Would you agree that this phenomenon is even more prominent among single adults?

Living in America can make you sick. That’s the conclusion of a research-based article in Monitor on Psychology (April 2007). Despite record amounts spent on health care, Americans have higher rates of sickness than other Western nations. Two factors are especially toxic.

First, compared to most other developed nations, Americans work longer hours, take fewer vacations, and more often have two jobs. This increases stress and undermines health.

Second, Americans live in an isolated nation. We are mobile people who make frequent moves leaving friends and family behind. After work every day we withdraw into our houses, have few contacts with neighbors and a decreasing network of confidants.

Overachieving parents run their kids from activity to activity so everybody is tired and there is no time for relaxing with friends. When we teach children to excel and seek material success, they jump on the activity wheel even at the expense of healthy lifestyles and social interactions.

- garyrcollins.com

The Buzzard, The Bat, and The Bumblebee

The BUZZARD

If you put a buzzard in a pen that is 6 feet by 8 feet and is entirely open at the top, the bird, in spite of its ability to fly, will be an absolute prisoner. The reason is that a buzzard always begins a flight from the ground with a run of 10 to 12 feet. Without space to run, as is its habit, it will not even attempt to fly, but will remain a prisoner for life in a small jail with no top.

The BAT

The ordinary bat that flies around at night, a remarkably nimble creature in the air, cannot take off from a level place. If it is placed on the floor or flat ground, all it can do is shuffle about helplessly and, no doubt, painfully, until it reaches some slight elevation from which it can throw itself into the air. Then, at once, it takes off like a flash.

The BUMBLEBEE

A bumblebee, if dropped into an open tumbler, will be there until it dies, unless it is taken out. It never sees the means of escape at the top, but persists in trying to find some way out through the sides near the bottom. It will seek a way where none exists, until it completely destroys itself.

PEOPLE

In many ways, we are like the buzzard, the bat, and the bumblebee. We struggle about with all our problems and frustrations, never realizing that all we have to do is look up.

Sorrow looks back, worry looks around, but faith looks up.

- author unknown