IWHTM – It Won’t Happen To Me
As I started writing this article I realized that there are actually two forms of IWHTM, a good one and a bad one. The bad one is perhaps the most dreaded and deadly condition to afflict the human mind. It is a mental illness that results in physical damage in the form of disease, injury, and death. The good one is just the opposite. It can push you into action that can prevent disease, injury, and death. A 2020 example of BAD IWHTM is when a person attends a party without masks and brings home the SARS-CoV-2 virus to grandma sending her into the ICU. Or more broadly when one eats fast food every day and lives a sedentary lifestyle and dies early from heart disease. In contrast, GOOD IWHTM is when you take preventative action of any sort.
Truly we all have a blend of the bad and the good within us. It Won’t Happen To Me combined with It Will Happen To Me. There is the corollary It Might Happen To Me. For example, pretend you own a home in a mudslide area. If you believe it won’t happen to you, you will end up with a home full of mud. If you believe it might happen to you you still end up with a house full of mud but you have insurance to pay for it. And if you believe it will happen to you you not only have insurance but you have sand bags laid out to keep out the mud. Preventative action is the hallmark of It Will Happen To Me.
I learned at the age of 39 that It Will Happen To Me when I thought I had had a heart attack. My blood pressure was too high. I was overweight. I was sedentary. I didn’t eat well. I was in constant pain. I didn’t do anything right because I knew that It Wouldn’t Happen To Me…until it did happen to me…well almost. No doctor could tell me what did happen to me and I still don’t know, but it wasn’t a heart attack. But it was a chance, a chance to know that It Will Happen To Me and a chance to do my best to prevent it.
I get excited and very pleased when one of my patients tells me they are taking distinct and decisive preventative action for their health. I hope I can influence or convince you to do more, wherever you are on this walk. You are here reading this and that is a start. Take possession and control of your health. Take preventative action. Be the example for others to follow. You can do it. It is within your power. The only way It Won’t Happen to You is if you stop it, not ignore it.
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