Future Flipped Backward: Three Wise Tips to Young Me From Older Me

Summary: In a future flipped backward scenario, three wise tips to younger me from older me center on eye health, water and meditation.

Wisdom may be gleaned from a look backward to younger days: "Wisdom" by Sharon (Art4TheGlryOfGod), CC BY ND 2.0, via Flickr

Doing eye exercises, drinking water and practicing meditation are the three wise tips that an older me would give to a younger me. These three counsels come from personal experiences and interactions as well as from expert advice and research. They lead to happier choices in terms of educational or professional development, interpersonal interactions and personal health.

Eyes can be called windows to the soul. Their beauty often depends upon the skilled use of makeup. But enduring, healthy beauty draws upon committed eye care. Such a program involves diet (eating carrots and tomatoes) and exercise, such as the palming, side-to-side, up-to-down eyeball movements promoted by yoga.

Eye exercises relax and strengthen eyes ~ morning eye yoga: J P Davidson, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

Drinking water can be grouped with the most important health-impacting decisions to make. Water generally has to make up 60 percent of healthy human body weight. Its insufficient use is linked to circulatory buildups, dry eyes, intestinal blockages, muscle cramps, obesity, poor digestion and sleeplessness. Its proper use leads to better health. It also may be linked to more successful educational, professional, psychological and social development since it supports more positive self-images, more effective sleep patterns and more active lifestyles.

Practicing meditation consolidates and encourages the benefits of doing eye exercises and drinking water. It gives the practitioner the discipline of knowing oneself and the tools for making happy, healthy choices. It involves two main components.

One component is the meditation that focuses upon the breath. Proper breathing is essential since the residual volume of oxygen inhaled and carbon dioxide exhaled shifts perilously to increasing retention of the latter over time. Improper breathing may be epitomized by old age's and poor health's gas-filled stomach that clearly is visible in an X-ray!

Creative visual imagination comprises the second main component of meditation. It demands identifying where one wants to go personally and professionally in life and what is needed to get there. For example, the creative visual meditation practitioner imagines an ideal self (water bottle, running attire, marathon trophy, bill of health), personal happiness ("Let's get married and have romantic vacations every year and organize reunions for both sides of the family for every holiday!") and professional advancement (bigger office, larger paycheck, smarter clothes, "You deserve the promotion" says The Boss).

Each practice takes just five minutes a day even though the simple joy and straightforward results from carrying them out enrich the present and last a happy, healthy, wealthy lifetime.

Drinking water is an important health habit ~ "We Are the Product of Our Past Experiences" depicts past in water glass: Cristian V., CC BY ND 2.0, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Wisdom: Art4TheGlryOfGod by Sharon (Art4TheGlryOfGod), CC BY ND 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/4thglryofgod/8784955343

Morning eye yoga class at Bihar School for Blind Girls (Bihar Natraheen Parishad), Patna, northeastern India: J P Davidson, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ www.flickr.com/photos/50616401@N07/4656887275

"We are the product of our past experiences": Cristian V., CC BY ND 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/shyald/3184671595