20 Ways to Add More To Your Life in 2010

When I qualified as a doctor at 25 years old, I thought I knew everything there was to know about health and medicine. By the age of 30, I realized my medical training was limited, and I didn’t really know much about health and wellness.

So I went on a journey of discovery to expand my horizons; I studied acupuncture, Chinese medicine, Functional medicine, nutrition, yoga and Buddhism. By 50, I realized my life training was limited too as my daughter (a teenager at the time) was pointing out “how stupid” I was. And now that I am 55, I realize I have amassed a lot of knowledge but have so much more to learn.

As I get older and hopefully wiser with every year, certain insights have become clearer. Here are some of them gleaned from the wisdom I have gained from 30 years of marriage, having a 22-year-old daughter, practicing medicine for 30 years and being a perpetual student of life.

20 New Year Resolutions

More Real Food, Less “Food-like Substances”
More Fruit and Vegetables, Less Sugar, Wheat and Corn
More Organic, Less Toxic
More Chewing, Less Eating
More Water, Less Soda
More Recycling, Less Waste
More Walking, Less Driving
More Exercising, Less Watching TV
More Outdoors, Less Indoors
More Sleep, Less Worry
More Calm, Less Chaos
More Being, Less Doing
More Consciousness, Less Ignorance
More Smiles, Less Anger
More Love, Less Hatred
More Play, Less Serious
More Letting Go, Less Holding On
More Forgiving, Less Blaming
More Generosity, Less Greed
More Ubuntu, Less Me!

Ubuntu means what makes us human is the humanity we show each other. It is a Xhosa (South African) word and philosophy emphasizing community, sharing and generosity.

As Archbishop Desmond Tutu says:
“Ubuntu is about the essence of being human, it is part of the gift that Africa will give the world. It embraces hospitality, caring about others, being able to go the extra mile for the sake of others. We believe that a person is a person through another person, that my humanity is caught up, bound up, inextricably, with yours. When I dehumanize you, I inexorably dehumanize myself. The solitary human being is a contradiction in terms and therefore you seek to work for the common good because your humanity comes into its own in belonging.”

Let 2010 be the year of UBUNTU.