What’s this thing called a Sim?
If you have children that like video games or if you are a gamer yourself, you may have heard of the video game called The Sims. I played this game when it originally came out twenty years ago… EEK… does that age me? In this game, your main job was to keep your simulated person happy by taking care of their physiological needs. As the game progressed in its versions over the years, you also had to keep your sim emotionally and mentally happy. If you didn’t, boy would you know! Your sim would begin to become defiant and cranky. Eventually your sim would attempt to take care of their own needs if you didn’t do it for them. If things got too severe, your sim could end up meeting their final fate with the grim reaper.
There were little bars in the menu that represented needs like hygiene, hunger, tiredness, etc. I will call them “Tanks”. As long as the tanks were green, all was well with your sim. It was a pretty easy task to keep the tank on green when you only had to take care of your sim. The more sims you added to your household, the more things could get quite hectic. Tanks quickly dropped from green to yellow to red.
Life’s Challenges
Sound familiar? Things can be pretty good for you during vacation or when the kids are away at Grandma’s and Grandpa’s house, but what about when the grind starts back? What happens to you when you aren’t able to send your kids away or if you’re caring for a sick relative 24/7? What happens when your job demands a lot from you? Do you put the exciting novel you were reading down? Pick up the fast food? Put down the Bible? Pick up the remote? Put down the weights? Pick up the bad attitude? Put down the fun project? Pick up the credit card?
Fill Your Tank
As we go, go, go, we sometimes forget that we are not running on infinite power. Our tanks do run empty, and if we don’t do something to refill our tanks, we will run ourselves into the ground. The CDC reports that 11.2% of adults 18 and over deal with regular feelings of nervousness, anxiety, or worry1. That is just the people that have reported. Can you imagine how many people suffer in silence?
Now I know what you’re thinking. Leeann, how am I going to make time to read a book or have a family movie night when I have so many other things to do? I didn’t say it was going to always be easy, but here it is in a nutshell. “If you don’t make time for your wellness, you will be forced to make time for your illness.” – Author Unknown
There are nine main areas of wellness that are important for you to consider when you’re working on whole body wellness: financial, spiritual, nutritional, physical, environmental, social, occupational, emotional, and intellectual. I will go into more detail about each one in later posts. You won’t give them all priority one status everyday, but it is important to understand when one of your tanks is running low so that you can fill it back up before you begin making bad choices.
1CDC statistic on mental health: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/mental-health.htm
I’’d rather!! To started 2022 with those words confirms a place in my life where I am now!! Every day that we’re blessed to wake up, God gives us the grace to do better then the day before!! So I encourage everyone to make better decisions, choices, dilemmas or pick your battles with this new year you’ve been blessed with!! I’d rather live my life to the fullest…mind, body and soul!!
I agree!
I love this!
Thank you!
After you have lived for 5 or 6 decades you usually know these things. However, we become so busy that we just stop taking care of our whole self. This is a great reminder.
Thank you!
Way to go