As Americans start the holiday season of an economically challenging 2009, we have much for which we can be thankful. After all, we live in America and we are a prosperous and generous people. For example, working hard in America today is Bill Phillips, the self-made multimillionaire and author of the bestselling book, Body for Life. Bill is thankful for his good fortune and has decided to make it his mission in life to help Americans of all colors and sizes make healthy changes in their lives so that they in turn can make a difference in the lives of other Americans. While his message may be schmaltzy at times, it is fundamentally sound: he advocates that each of us must “Be The Change” we want to see in our lives and that the best way to do that is by changing how we as Americans eat, exercise, and think. In short, Bill suggests that a healthy mind and spirit can only thrive in a healthy body for it is the body that hosts and feeds that mind and spirit.
To encourage Americans to be healthier, Bill puts up hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money each year to challenge any and all comers to his Be the Change Challenge (It’s free. See www.transformation.com for more information). If you work hard over 18 weeks to transform your health and fitness, you could be crowned a Transformation Champion and win some of Bill’s money for yourself and for your favorite charity.
One such Champion is Denise Taylor, a married mother of five children from Sellersburg, Indiana. What made Denise’s championship unique was the venue in which she got fit: a hospital. Denise lived at the hospital while taking care of her 15-year old daughter Jonnae, who spent months there undergoing treatment for leukemia. While Jonnae slept, Denise would run up and down the hospital’s staircases for aerobic exercise. For resistance training, Denise would do push-ups and sit-ups on the floor of the hospital room while Jonnae watched and counted aloud the reps.
Denise and Jonnae were happy to support each other as each attempted to conquer her own personal adversity – Jonnae to defeat leukemia and Denise to transform her body, mind, and spirit through the Challenge. Denise likes to point out that she and Jonnae rallied together against adversity through gratitude. Both enjoyed using the gracious phrase “I get to” as a replacement for the more burdensome “I have to.” For example, Jonnae didn’t tell her friends, “I have to have a bone marrow transplant.” Instead, she told them, “I get to have a bone marrow transplant.” This simple change showed Jonnae’s gratitude for having a chance, a hope for a cure to her cancer that many other children in the world do not have.
As Americans facing economic adversity, we can all learn a powerful lesson from Jonnae and her mom. Many of us who suffered financial losses over the past year now have to work harder, save our earnings, and rebuild our investment portfolios. Many of us have to go out and try to find a new job in an economy with a 10% unemployment rate. Many of us have to move out of our cherished home and into a smaller house or an apartment to make ends meet. But, do we HAVE TO do these things? Or, do we GET TO do these things? Bad economy or not, we are still Americans living in America: we represent only 4.5% of the world population, yet we control over 20% of world economic output. Our disproportionately large control of economic power endows the average American family with many trappings of life that go far beyond those of the average non-U.S. family.
Take a look at India: it’s a country with 17.2% of the world population and its average income per person is only $2.78 a day. Could you live on only $2.78 a day, every day of the year? Probably not. You likely spend more than that on a Starbucks latte just to get your day started (the average U.S. income per person is $130 a day – before taxes). China is similar to India: it has 19.6% of the world population and its average income per person is only $8.93 a day. You likely spend at least that much on lunch. Do you think average people in India, China, and other places like Africa, Southeast Asia, South America, and Eastern Europe even have investment portfolios that they have to rebuild? Do they have good paying jobs they have to go out and find again? Do they have a comfortable family home that they have to sell? No, they don’t have to do any of these things because, for them, it is simply not economically feasible to do in the first place.
Here in America, life is different. Americans don’t have to do these things during tough economic times. Americans get to do these things – things that average people in the rest of the world would love to get the chance to do. In America, we are all privileged. We don’t have to do anything. We get to do everything – even those things we do not really want to do. It’s a valuable lesson that Denise and Jonnae knew well as they both battled to become champions. While her treatments, her mom’s love, and her own sense of gratitude kept leukemia at bay for many months, Jonnae succumbed to the disease on June 9, 2008. Her mom Denise is grateful it was a battle the two of them got to fight together.
Addendum:
Watch a video of Denise and Jonnae’s story of transformation at www.Transformation.com.
Watch a video of Denise talk about Jonnae and “I Get To” in July 2008 at www.YouTube.com.
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NOTE: This article first appeared in the Thanksgiving-themed Winter 2009 issue of The Swan, a publication of the Lake Forest Community Association, Inc., a nonprofit Texas corporation.
Copyright 2009 LoganFlatt.com. All rights reserved.
