The apple that changed my life priorities

You know me, always following the Kaizen philosophy of continuous improvement.

So when I read that ‘apples are more effective at keeping people awake than caffine’, I knew I had to test it for myself.

I felt that this was plausible since turkey is known to contain a chemical that makes you sleepy, then perhaps apples contained a little known chemical that could do the opposite.

I usually have an apple at lunch time anyway but not usually at breakfast. So the next day I sat down to breakfast with the addition of an apple.

Everything was normal for a while, I was busy writing new blog posts and eating my apple when I started to get a feeling, a bad feeling in my stomach.

The Pain

It started out as a mild pain which I just ignored, but it quickly built up to something quite serious, so much so that I had to stop what I was doing and focus all my effort on calming my mind before it sent me into panic mode.

You know what the mind is like, it starts running through all the worst possible scenarios, creating thoughts about when to ring for an ambulance etc

After about 20 minutes the pain subsided and I my mind gave up the fight.

What I haven’t mentioned yet is that up until eating the apple I was in a rather negative frame of mind.

No big deal, it was just time for me to go round the bottom of the cycle. I was busy questioning all my plans and my goals, filling myself full of doubt etc

That was until my stomach became painful. Suddenly my full attention snapped to my health. In an instant my health had shot up to being the only thing I cared about. Without your health as a foundation you’ve got nothing.

It’s like that quote:
“Something could happen tomorrow that would make us give anything to come back to today”.

Now I’m not saying this event changed my life because I already fully appreciate the fact that your health is everything.

The interesting observation about this event is the speed at which my attention was taken off my negative thoughts and placed squarely at the concern of my body.

So you say “Great! Every time you start thinking negative just eat an apple” noooooo! That’s not the lesson at all.

The lesson is about how quickly our priorities can change depending on the experiences we go through.

Nothing anyone could have said to me could have had the same effect on my priorities as that direct experience.

The second lesson is about finding out what works for you.

You say “well I eat apples for breakfast and I’m fine” and that’s great!

But we are all absolutely unique in every way. I’ve just learned how my body reacts to apples if I eat them first thing in the morning.

Another step closed to truly knowing myself.

What does this have to do with anything?

I believe that self knowledge is a great help when getting what you want out of life. Knowing exactly what you are working with gives you a huge boost.

Going after your goals thinking you’re as good at everything as everybody else is to be on a collision course with disaster.

So keep testing, keep experimenting, even if you end up with a bit of stomach pain now and again.