“How do you expect to change the world if you can’t do ten perfect pushups?!?!”
Darien Gold, my genius pilates instructor, recently issued this challenge during class and well, I have to admit, she makes a good point.
Keeping our bodies healthy has got to be at the top of all of our priority lists, long before we get to items like “own one pair of jeans that fit perfectly.”
After all, I’d rather have a healthy body and the sorriest-looking clothes you’ve ever seen than an unhealthy body and the designer-filled closet of my dreams.
But making health a priority isn’t easy…and it may not always be popular with your friends and family.
While you’d think your loved ones would support you in your quest for good health, it’s often these same loved ones who encourage you to break your diet with “just one bite” or complain when you crawl out of bed to go to fitness class on Saturday morning instead of staying home to cook the pancakes.
Plus it takes an enormous amount of discipline and desire to eat ice cream only a few times a year or limit yourself to one martini on a night out with the girls.
But, as they say, HOW YOU DO ANYTHING IS HOW YOU DO EVERYTHING.
And when you develop respect for your own body and health, when you develop the discipline to do the things that get you healthy and keep you healthy, and when you develop an attitude that health is indeed wealth, you will find you take these same attitudes with you into everything that you do.
Before long you’ll find that healthy respect you developed for your own body will extend to your loved ones and friends. You’ll want all of them to be healthy, too.
Then it will extend to strangers and perhaps you’ll find yourself doing a walk for cancer or volunteering at a local health clinic.
Over time it can even extend to the planet and before you know it you’re helping out at Heal the Bay or fighting to clean up your local park.
And you’ll even be able to see how your healthy attitude extends to simple things like your clothes and other possessions.
You’ll want to keep them healthy and looking good, too, and before long you’re treating them differently.
No more tossing the laundry into the washing machine before turning items inside out and making sure everything is buttoned and zipped.
No more undressing and tossing your clothes over a chair at the end of the day. You’ll take a moment to hang them up and air them out. On real hangers. Not those awful wire ones from the dry cleaners.
Heck, you may eventually say no to the dry cleaners altogether and find yourself hand-washing more and dry cleaning only a handful of items a year.
And if you’re having trouble finding the motivation and discipline you need to get or keep your body healthy, why not start here?
Because the cycle works in reverse, too.
Take great care of your clothes and you just might find yourself wanting to take way better care of other things like your body and health, too.
For inspiration, just look at today’s VPOD.
This vintage 1920s flapper dress with a Southwestern beaded motif received tender loving care over decades and decades and it looks almost as good as the day it was made.
I certainly hope I can be this well-preserved and look this good when I’m approaching a 100 years old!
And that’s one healthy attitude for any Vintage Crusader!
Available at Vintage Textile.
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