Rugged individualism does not free you of the responsibility you have to your fellow human beings with whom you are sharing a planet. That responsibility only increases when you enter into business. Your factory is so heavily regulated because before such regulations, factories polluted the environment along with the people in it to the point that the deaths became too numerous to ignore. And we all did our best to ignore it because those factories employed so many families. When greed goes unchecked, it quickly turns murderous.
On the other hand, no one wants to be forced to take a vaccination they don’t trust. Some believe the pandemic was all about engineering a pernicious vaccine for the purpose of population control. If you are among those who consider this sort of thing to be a strong possibility, there is nothing anyone will be able to say or do that will convince you to take one of the many, readily available coronavirus vaccines. However, that does not mean you don’t care about your health. There are personal as well as social consequences to neglecting your health. Here is why it needs to be a priority:
Your Family’s Safety Is Job One
If someone intentionally or neglect fully threatened the health and life of your family, you would have more than a strongly worded response. No one would blame you for seeing red. You owe it to yourself and your family to make sure you are not the one representing their biggest threat. Long before the coronavirus, people got sick and died from infectious diseases. Whether a virus is engineered in a lab or not is secondary to the fact that you need to be sure you don’t get it and spread it.
The best way to do that is to get screened for the things that can be transmitted by casual contact. As a patient, you need to be sure your doctor is using the best testing products on the market. As a medical professional, you owe it to your patients to use the best testing supplies and services available. You have to know if you have something that is contagious. As a healthy person, you could transmit illness without experiencing it yourself. If members of your family or faith community are more vulnerable to viruses, the best way you can protect them is by taking good care of yourself. Do it for the ones you love.
Your Children Learn from You
You can’t expect your children to grow up valuing health if they don’t see you valuing yours. Don’t expect them to brush their teeth if you are not brushing yours. Don’t expect them to value healthcare for their family if they never see you getting a checkup. Don’t neglect those pediatric visits. They learn their priorities from you. So you have to model what it looks like to take care of one’s self.
If you want them to start smoking, let them see you smoking. If you want them to disrespect doctors, let them see you disrespect doctors. If you want them to grow up and fail to provide for the health of their family, let them grow up seeing you neglect the health of your family. Of course, no one wants to teach that kind of lesson to their kids. Even if some health concerns are hyped, it doesn’t follow that they all are. Teach them how to recognize true health threats and what to do about them.
You Don’t Want to Leave Them with the Bill
If you don’t take care of yourself and find yourself with early passage to the next iteration, someone is going to be stuck with the bill. One of the most common reasons for bankruptcy is medical bills. If you don’t have insurance, your family could be ruined. At that point, they will have to give themselves over to the always reliable and tender mercies of the government. That is surely not what you want. That is why it is so important that you take care of yourself.
We never fully escape social responsibility. Part of that social responsibility is taking care of yourself. If not for yourself, do it for your family’s safety, for a good example to your kids, and for the financial security of those who would have no financial security when you are gone.
