To Be Wise

Your Challenge Today:

To be wise …

By Bernadette Kathryn, LMT, IHLC

A wise man never loses anything,

if he has himself.

~ Michel de Montaigne

To be wise, what does that mean to you? When I was taking a class at the School of Practical Philosophy we had a lesson each week and I remember one specific lesson was to ask ourselves “what would the wise man do in this situation?” Whatever the situation that I had come to and needed to contemplate before taking action. I found this a valuable exercise because it reminded me to look inside and consult my inner wisdom and learn to trust my intuition when making decisions.

 “A wise man never loses anything, if he has himself.” This quote and the philosophical question have real personal meaning to me ever since I was a young adult and just beginning to live on my own. I had moved into a new apartment, a brand spanking new complex ~ new everything, I even had the pleasure of picking out my own carpet color and wallpaper. I was so happy and feeling very grown up! I was moving in with a roommate because I didn’t want to live alone and I moved my things into the apartment before my roommate one cold day in January, I will never forget. The temperature was pretty cold and I wanted to warm the apartment up before I actually began to live there, so I turned the heat on and left to go get groceries and a few things that I would need. I came back the next day early to begin organizing my space and I found the heater had exploded and everything in the apartment had burned. What a shocker. I didn’t know anything about renter’s insurance at the time and clearly didn’t invest in it so I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. Everything I owned was in that apartment, my clothes, furniture, everything burned.

I walked around in dazed confusion for a bit after I went to the apartment complex office to report the problem. Much to my amazement and luck, I had 72 hours to check everything in the apartment to make sure it worked after I moved in and report it to the office for repairs ~ which meant that the complex was legally responsible for my things! Wow, I was so lucky, what a blessing and lesson learned regarding insurance! OK, so that was a terrible inconvenience but, I was safe and not going to be financially devastated, thank you!

I thought I was in the clear – and then when I went to work the next day I was recovering from the shock, I made some connections to get new furniture and clothes. I would slowly rebuild my life and get back on track, or so I thought… only to go outside at the end of the day to get into my car and go home and found that my car had been stolen. I thought I was going crazy, had I misplaced my car? Nope, it was stolen … no way, unbelievable.

I distinctly remember sitting down and saying “God, I don’t understand what just happened ~ my apartment burned and my car was stolen, I have just lost everything I own, what’s going on?” I am pretty sure I wasn’t actually expecting a response from God, I was just thinking out loud. And suddenly, I heard a voice in my head say “yes, you did just lose everything you ‘own’ but you still have your body, the place that is you”. And, I knew in an instant it was true, all this other ‘stuff’ can be replaced, it’s just ‘stuff’. I cannot be replaced, my body cannot be replaced – I have to take care of this place that I live called my body – it is the only thing I will ever truly own in this world.

What “a-ha” moments have you had

that support your Living Fit Lifestyle?