Vitality and Its Role in Life
Vitality has long been known to play a crucial role in life, so much so that a lot of people equate these two as the same.
What is vitality? The dictionary definition of the word will usually churn out the definition of the right combination between physical and mental strength, which indicates a balance between your body and your mind. Physical strength will allow you to do your daily tasks, while mental skills will allow you to process things that you encounter in your life. In a way, it is how people make their life energies manifest so they can share a bit of themselves to everyone else.
As Martha Graham said, “There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.”
Vitality is most obvious in young people, who have all the time and energy in the world to be vivacious and energetic in just about everything that they approach, to the point that some would have a devil-may-care attitude because they are just full of life and they want to share this energy to the whole world.
However, as people age, they may begin to lose their vitality. Work, responsibilities and duties begin to take their toll on people, such that the way they live their lives is not because of enjoyment in what they’re doing; rather, they go through the motions of daily life because they feel obligated to do so. Gone are the days when they feel like they can take anything the world throws at them. In its place is a defeatist attitude, and people are not wholly to blame for this.
Time brings about effects to the body, making it a little frailer as each day passes. Feeling their bodies slowly but surely aging, people take on a negative attitude towards life, pulling themselves down. Thus, the gradual decline of vitality over time is again both body and mind: because people feel that their bodies aren’t as spry as they used to be, they unconsciously internalize this and take on a self-defeating mind set.
The good news is, it’s possible to regain youthful vitality. Certainly, aging will have its effects on the body, but it doesn’t mean that you should push yourself even further down because of this. Observe proper nutrition and think positively. As people say, “You’re only as old as you think you are”, so if you think that you’re weak and frail, then you’ll end up internalizing this attitude. You will think you’re weak and frail, because you thought it. The key to keeping and maintaining vitality is to keep both your body and mind active, so that you will be able to have the energy to take on whatever task that you set yourself to doing.
