The Spirit Indeed is Willing but . . .

the flesh is weak.

   

The first part of this little scriptural couplet (Matthew 26:41) is true for many, but the last part is true for all.

I think that most people, initially, want to do right—want to follow their conscience, their diet or savings plan, their New Year’s resolutions, indeed their heart.  Their spirit is/was willing.  But everybody finds that eventually their body lets them down. 

The shelf life for an athlete, for example, or a beauty queen, but even for most well-intentioned, well-educated young adults eventually falls to the ravages of time.  The second law of thermodynamics is always operative; we have to continually fight entropy (the running down or disintegration of any system). When the years of the life of a person is graphed, the charted ‘curve’ for most people has a long fall off ‘tail’ to the right.

But it doesn’t have to happen that way.  It is the goal of preventative health advocates, and to a larger degree possible than many people believe, to ‘square off’ the curve. That is, to keep ourselves physically functional and operatively healthy for many years longer than many people do.  We do not have to be victims of the tyranny of birthdays.  Our chronological age does not dictate our functional age. 

 

Yes, we will all eventually die (a grave marker I read in a Boston cemetery read, “I knew this would happen!”) but unless we are victims of unavoidable accident or the consequences of war or a deranged shooter or contract a deadly communicable disease, or the like, most of us could live longer and much healthier than we do.  We could live, live, live, live. . . and then die.  Instead, far too many live robustly for a few years and then dieeeeeeeeee over a protracted period of many years. 

  

The key to this longer, healthier, more productive life is for the spirit to be not only ‘willing,’ but disciplined.  We can fight entropy. The knowledge is out there about what to avoid that is deleterious to one’s health and what to include and do to contribute to good physical and mental health. I would suggest you find and read Stephen R. Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, especially the chapter on 'Sharpen the Saw,' the essence of this posting. It will provide you with an understanding of how to discipline the spirit to fight entropy.

I have found that the disciplined person, as they age, almost always has a happier life.