Critical Self Maintenance

So many people are concerned with what they are entitled to, how other people should treat them, with what they should have.
Yet they don't take care of themselves. They get caught up in their own struggles, never reaching out. They get caught up in their baggage instead of putting to down. Their homes are in disarray, but they get their jobs done. They don't eat right. They don't take care of symptoms when they are manageable, instead they let things snowball until what could have been a bump in the road becomes a one way ticket off the mortal coil. They hold onto their hurts instead of healing.
Some use shopping, collecting material goods they don't need as a pacifier; others food, others drink or take their pills to keep the feelings and thoughts at Bay.
It's a downward spiral that paralyzes many.
No one can stop that spiral except you. No one can make that choice to reach out to friends and supports except you.
I know more dead people than live ones, those folks with sad ones- caught in that spiral: they wanted one thing. Not to feel the way they did but unable to see they weren't in a tunnel facing a train: they were under a night sky. They could have made so many different choices.
I have caught the news. I read the hate. I read the lives of friends accepting their spirals as inevitable.
I know they are wrong, because among the living are those who chose to reach out. Those who chose, one difficult step at a time; to start taking care of themselves. To value themselves and to take the steps to heal and really live.
Each day, I take time to organize, clean, and to make sure I take care of me. Eat, exercise, socialize, keep my environment organized and healthy.
It makes a vast difference.
Someone said to me, after not seeing me in years, they hardly recognized me: excess weight gone, focus sharp, negativity gone. What good is it to allow the unhealthy behaviors and patterns rule your life?
Life is about living, and to really live you've got to take care of you. Look around you, how do you take care of you? Treat yourself with the respect you deserve.