We have known many people who are here today gone tomorrow, through accidents, illness, homicide, or even a sudden heart attack. We don’t know the why, it just is. Or is it?

It’s a combination of our genes and the environment. It’s also about our personality type if we are “impulsive” we take more risks or if we “keep things bottled up” can eat away at our core…. Reach out, Speak 🗣 Up!
There are those philosophies about death and about living a “good life” that can help us reframe, as expressed in stoic philosophy.

Health literacy is about understanding risk and focusing on preventing or further worsening of symptoms. October is an “awareness” month for Fall (including for animals) and April for Spring, let’s keep learning. As CDC says, health literacy affects everyone!

Regarding intimate relationships and potential abuse or abuse of children and animals which is particularly traumatic or infuriating to all — sites like this one are mandatory for all youth to be reading and trained with! (See ywcaspokane.org Power and Control Wheel 🛞). When we understand about Power and Control we can understand about human “sin”, motivation and weaknesses. And we need to promote classes in schools to discuss human – healthy relationships.

I was also very pleased to see a social marketing poster for citizens to remind them to call the hotline for dealing with potential child abuse as there have been many recent high profile cases, involving crime “rings” with that are surfacing in Greek news 📰 as of late. I note however that these crimes have been happening since the old times particular victims attractive “good-quiet” kids! 😣

I have lost many friends in their late 20s (diabetes, liver cancer, accidents), 30s and 40s (stomach cancer, pancreatic cancer, heart attacks) and with secondary aging more expected in 50s and 60s and beyond. Death of young athletes especially shock us, like this of Mr. Nikolaidis, age 42, a Tae Kwon Do Olympic medalist who had a rare form of cancer. The Olympics article writes that he never said, “Why me?” in his two year cancer battle. He lived a good and useful life and when he discussed with a reporter years ago his working with children training them in Tae Kwon Do, I loved his sense of responsibility for the “twenty pairs of eyes” who looked up to him. As he also had two young children himself, we are especially saddened for their loss.

The Olympiad’s written message to all speaks volumes. Persistence is admirable and all are saddened by loss of great people. 😔😢The images speak volumes even if you don’t speak Greek, as his support for other cancer victims lead to his putting up his two Olympic medals for auction in helping children/ youth fighting cancer.

Teaching for more than 13 years courses like Developmental Psychology, having experience in hospitals and Psy wards as an intern and Counselor, discussing these cases is critical for my students learning. We talk about life but also death. I share 3 lessons for all …

Lesson #1 — if your teen or young adult is “drinking” themselves to death you need to intervene with friends/ family and professionals like family therapists or social workers, health psychologists, even religious leaders who mean something to the teen, young adult, older adult. There is specialized training, as often high risk behaviors “won’t go away” on their own. Young people engage in “sensation seeking” behaviors — as ridiculous as it may sound to you, we’ve had youth snort the white chemical known as white-out (or “blanco”) to get “highs”, and more often motorists speeding without helmets ⛑ for the rush of adrenaline ….and getting into very serious or deadly accidents, that could have been prevented. Police 👮‍♂️ need to do their jobs, and we never drink and drive. This shocking but true video speaks volumes….

Lesson #2 — too little or too much of a good thing can be harmful to our body. This includes too many vitamins or too little, exercise, sex, sleep, heavy lifting, etc. Self-care is NOT selfish! And managing our emotions and what we “take in” is priority.

Lesson #3 — share love 💗 as much as you can, ask for forgiveness, go to trips local or international, enjoy good food and good wine 🍷 (not too much), and ask for and give many hugs 🤗 ! Adult humans and children need comfort as much as animals do. These images and quotes from https://lessonslearnedinlife.com/ are particularly poignant.

Defining Health Literacy is critical to understanding life. We need patience to help others, ourselves and only time will tell the outcome. Keep moving and keep doing, don’t live with regrets, be all the best you can be, learning is a lifelong process.