Grandson Joe has a new job. It starts at 5 in the morning! You have to get up EARLY to clock in at 5 a.m.! It’s even earlier if you’re used to going to bed about then. His grandmother asked him if he’s adjusting okay. He said, “It’s not hard to adjust if you have a reason to get up.”
That’s faith, which is the most necessary element in the list of the 8 necessary elements for brain health, reported by brain researchers Andrew Newberg, MD, and Mark Robert Waldman in their book, How God Changes Your Brain.
They don’t necessarily mean religious faith, although they think religious faith is a positive thing, but the sort of faith represented in Joe’s statement—a reason to get up. It’s faith in life. There is some reason to get up and start the day. That’s a “good attitude.”
A good attitude. That was one of the elements we were told we needed as cancer patients. Just what is a “good” attitude?
I recall Jim Phillips, from my cancer support group. He had a terrible attitude. On purpose. He was a contrarian. He just had to disagree with everything. So he was out to prove that you could survive cancer with a bad attitude. His oncologist, Pat Johnson, played along. “I thought you died,” she would exclaim whenever she encountered Jim. He loved it. It kept him alive. His bad attitude was, for him, a perfect attitude. He had a reason to get up.
“Whatever floats your boat,” as we used to say. Or, even better, “Keep the faith.”
John Robert McFarland
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