Month: September 2024

In The News, My Take

Towards A Healthy Life

It was a little difficult to digest at first but I had to accept my friend was right. She pointed out that we were now in the eighth decade of our lives!! When you get to my age, you tend to be more philosophical about things around you. One thing is certain- your health is key to your overall success in life. I know of many cases of very wealthy people not being able to enjoy what they have earned. Not because they don’t want to spend, but because their health just does not allow them to live the life they would like to. Indeed, health is wealth!

Paying attention to health is not just for older people as was the popular opinion in my youth! If anything, it applies more to younger people than ever before. I was astonished to read that in Bengaluru doctors have found a 30 % increase in people in their 30s having bypass surgery!

Stress levels too are growing alarmingly as seen by that startling statistic in the previous paragraph! In my experience, reading has been a good habit to cultivate and pursue across all ages. Read from your device or from a physical book – but do read! I know that many young people don’t read as much as we used to at their age. “Where’s the time, uncle?” is a plaintive cry! The answer is simple. You have to make time for what you consider important. Check out this article by Jim Kwik. Investing just 30 minutes a day to reading- whatever you like- can do your health a world of good.

And for us older folk? Critical is the need to keep our brain engaged and active! Most of the points mentioned in this article from the Harvard Medical School on keeping your brain young appear to be just common sense! But as the old gag goes, common sense is sadly often uncommon!

Abraham Lincoln put it so well when he said, ” “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”

Authors, Book Reviews

“The Teachings Of Shirelle” by Douglas Green

We are accustomed to being told to look around us and learn lessons from others- human beings, of course. But learning lessons from a dog? That too a stray from the pound that got the nickname, “Knucklehead”?? This is what “The Teachings of Shirelle: Life Lessons from a Divine Knucklehead” by Douglas Green is all about. First published in 2015 by Cavalleria Press, this book makes for delightful reading. It vividly captures that beautiful – and sometimes stressful- relationship between a dog and her owner.

Green writes with great feeling about the twelve years he and Shirelle -his dog – spent together. She became the centre of his life, particularly when she was diagnosed as having malignant tumours. The story of how he never gave up hope- enjoying every minute they spent together – knowing the end had to come, touches you so deeply. He says, “Shirelle lived with no apparent awareness of death but lived each moment, as always , to the fullest.” How true it is that we take time for granted, postpone or ignore things we should do for our loved ones, until we are bluntly told that the countdown has begun. The time ahead is limited. The tough part is that no one can say with certainty when the end would come. They could only say that it would be upon him- any day now!

The story begins with the author deciding to get a dog for himself. He visits a pound in Los Angeles, where he lives, to take home a stray. His family had always got strays from the pound and never cared for a dog’s pedigree. As he walks along the cages in the pound, something clicks within him when he sees a pup which he later discovers is part husky-part Saint Bernard. She is taken home and later christened ” Shirelle”.

Douglas Green is a psychotherapist, writer and stage director. He has started, ” AskShirelle” to keep alive her memory and help kids, teens and their parents. In his practice, he uses much of what he learnt from Shirelle- the knucklehead from the city pound who changed his life- and perhaps that of so many others!