The 2 audacious questions for more well-being in 2018

Hello 2018. Another end. Followed by a ripe beginning.

This time can be so predictable. The new year’s diets. The plans to get to the gym more. The organization hacks.

I don’t mean that as a criticism, as I actually find the start of a new year refreshing and open with opportunities to set new intentions and perhaps steer the ship in another, more fruitful, direction. Lifestyle medicine is my jam and makes huge changes in a person's health.

Where I take issue is that it all looks so prim, proper and cleaned up. The whole mechanism seems to operate on the assumption that we all have a mutually agreed upon picture of what “health” is.

If 2017 taught me anything it’s that health is expansive not reductionist. That we want to live on our truest terms. That the sometimes misguided cultural expectations of what health, fulfillment or success look like don’t always reflect our heart’s deeper knowing or desire.

This is a living question for me. And one I pass on to you as maybe another way to look upon the new year.

It was planted a few months ago by this quotation:

“We’ve been wrong about what our job is in medicine. We think our job is to ensure health and survival. But really it is larger than that. It is to enable well-being. And well-being is about the reasons one wishes to be alive.”

-Atul Gawande, author of “Being Mortal”

Therefore, I think the audacious questions to ask this new year is:

What are the reasons you wish to be alive? What does well-being look like for you?

They’re big. I know. But this world needs us our aliveness and this time we have is precious.

To your well-being in 2018,

Antonella