Neglecting Regular Maintenance

This advice will change your life. Imagine for a moment that this is you– you are a nurse and you live 3 miles from the private practice that is your workplace. You drive a total of 50-60 miles per week including a few errands, your commute, and to and from church. You typically get your oil changed every 3000 miles which takes about 11.6 months. Your once a year keeps everything working because you just don’t put a ton of stress on your vehicle.

Now, suddenly, you apply for a new travel nursing job which takes you all over the state every week. You now start driving 60 miles per DAY, rather than per week. At that rate you would need an oil change every 1.6 months to keep up with your 3000 mile recommendation.

If you were to decide that you are just too busy to add in the additional oil changes and resolve that your once per year oil change has always worked and will likely continue to work for you, what is the predictable and expensive result to this decision? Answer: catastrophic failure and engine replacement.

Now interchange the word “car” with “your body” and rather than increased milage, reimagine this story with a significant increase in physical exercise that has occurred to your body. If you do not take into account that increased stress (even good stress) on your human frame will cause increased wear and tear, than you will eventually experience catastrophic failure.

Going from 2000 steps per day to 12,000 steps per day may require more than your normal half-hearted stretching routine that you do every few days when convenient. Not budgeting into your finances the required chiropractic and massage and nutrition you need to stay functioning is like going to a restaurant with only enough money in your pocket to cover the bill, and none left for the tip. You just don’t do that! You need to re-evaluate the thought of these maintenance tools from “extras” to “non-negotiables.”

You’d never drive 10,000 miles between oil changes and claim to be surprised when your engine explodes into flames on the highway. Why do we act surprised and act like a victim of a cruel fate of bad luck when our body breaks down in ways related to our poor treatment of it over the years?

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Invest in your health early to acquire dividends in your quality of life. Fail to invest, and you will eventually burn through your savings paying for the expenses your acquire from unforeseen but predictable injury.

Yogendra Singh on Unsplash