By Penelope A. Domogo, MD
Last week, we discussed simple, small steps in treating and preventing high blood pressure. These are decreasing your salt, decrease sugar, decrease fat, do enough physical activity, no smoking and minimize alcohol. Simple di ba? Kasi you don’t have to buy expensive gadgets or buy expensive food to do these. In fact, you minimize your buying. And we say “small steps” because they don’t require you to change your residence or book a ticket to somewhere. Wait, you might have to change your barkada to kick that drinking habit. Anyway, these are small steps but are necessary. Repeat, they are necessary. And because they are small steps, you have to do them consistently for you to reach your destination.
Sometimes, it is easy to start decreasing your sugar. Then after a day of no sugar, you are back to sweets. You try again for a week but somehow, that sweet thing pulls your hand. I have heard people who start walking every morning. Then after sometime, their attention is diverted or they stopped because of the rainy weather. Then they don’t resume and are back to the chair…. scrolling facebook.
Unfortunately, healing from modern diseases doesn’t happen just because you ate purely vegetables for a week. This is because these diseases also didn’t happen in a week of eating sweet, fatty and salty foods or just because you had lechon yesterday. These modern diseases develop from years of bad eating and no exercise. This means you have consistently been eating bad food and consistently been having a sedentary life or have been having the “good” life for many years. I am glad that the publisher of this weekly is very open about his health challenges and healing journey, about the steps he is consistently taking toward healing. This is what we mean consistency is the key.
“Consistency is the key” means steady, repeated efforts produces results. This proverbial saying applies to all aspects of life, not only to health and wellness and healing. It also applies to wealth. You don’t become a millionaire in a day unless somebody bequeathed you a million or you won in gambling. To have a million in your savings account, you have to save consistently. To be good at ukulele, you have to practice consistently. Etc. It applies to your relationships with people and environment and the Creator.
Be on guard, however, because consistency is not automatically good. If you consistently do the wrong thing, then you become worse. If you consistently eat bad food, then you get sick. If you consistently avoid difficult conversations, then you damage your relationship. So let me revise the saying. It should read “Consistency is the key when the direction is right.”
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“Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.” 3 John 1:2
