Search
Related Links

 

 

Informative Articles

Flu Prevention and the Gym Member
Health officials' warning this month of a potentially harsh flu season should be a red flag to avid aerobic-bunnies and gym-jocks alike. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) warn that the flu is transmitted when flu virus in the air is inhaled...

Got a Cold - Should You Work Out?
A recent study sponsored by the American College of Sports Medicine indicates that exercising moderately while you have a common cold doesn't affect the severity or duration of the symptoms. It's a widely excepted notion that...

How Stressed Out Are You? Take this quiz and see how you rate on your stress level!
Stress, America’s #1 health problem, is a leading cause of major illness. Heart disease, high blood pressure, and depression are just some of the harmful effects of stress. Research has shown that releasing stress and learning how to relax...

Sound Heals!
Music Medicine Soothes the Soul and the Body Researchers throughout the world are reporting intriguing new ways about how sound vibration heals the body, mind, spirit and the environment. The words people choose to speak and the music people...

Your guide to Green Tea Extract
Medicine is a field of constant advancement. With so many new rocks being over turned each year it's really easy to over look natural solutions that have been proven to work with thousands of years of field experience. Green tea extract, a great...

 
If Only . . .

She was about 30 years old. A pretty woman to me. She had
several lines of deep scars on her face that I assumed were the
result of severe injuries caused by a car accident. Or worse, an
attack. This disturbed me.

I noticed her from my balcony within days of moving in to my
highrise, walking 2 little white dogs around the block. She was
always alone, always with a look of deep sadness on her face.

I must have ran into her at least twenty times during my year-and-a-
quarter of living here, on the elevator or on the grounds of our
building, each time trying to engage her in conversation - about the
weather, her dogs, anything to try to get her to at least, smile.

Never once did she smile though, or answer me with more than a
couple of words. After each attempt, I just left her with my smile,
and let it go.

Like you I'm sure, I have been face-to-face with people that have
been deeply depressed. In my heart of hearts, I knew she was.
Without knowing anything about her, I could only surmise that
whatever had happened in her life to cause this disfigurement was
the reason. Perhaps shallow of me, but I couldn't even imagine
looking in the mirror each day to see such hideous physical
devastation.

On Monday of last week, I proceeded out the main doors of my
building to go on my morning walk. I noticed 2 police cars and a
forensics van in the visitors parking lot. My mind began to wonder
as to what this could possibly have been about. I concluded that
perhaps an elderly tenant had passed away, and promptly forgot
about it.

On the following Friday, I discovered the truth. I saw one of the
building managers who had just returned from a funeral - the funeral
of this young woman.

She had done what was unperceivable to me - she took her own
life.

I was shaken. I learned in that conversation that her scars were the
result of surgery, for cancer. I became deeply disturbed.

Truth is, I had thought so many times that I should invite this
woman for a coffee, or for a walk in the sculpture park below of our
building. Something where some friendly conversation could 'break
the ice' and hopefully have her smile. Even just a single time. I have
a gift where I can make most people


smile:-) In retrospect though, I
can only now imagine that she had a great smile.

But I will never know. Because, as many times as I thought to
make this overture, never once did I act upon it. And being that I
have been blessed to have been in a position many times in my life
to have 'been there' for people who were depressed, and even
suicidal, I again, did NOT ACT UPON IT.

Guilty? Yes, I am.

Of course, I cannot afford to even begin to blame myself, a total
stranger to her, for what she felt she ultimately had no choice to do.
On the other hand, I could have chosen to do something, and act
upon my desire to at least try to help.

The obvious questions arise. Would she have accepted my
invitation to a coffee shop, or for a walk down the trail? If she did,
could I have made even a small difference in her life and actually
see her smile -- at least once? That, would have been wonderful to
me. Or, could I have made even a small impact that would have
ultimately led to, well, her deciding NOT swallow the overdose of
medicine that she did?

Thing is, I will never know, because I chose NOT TO ACT. Too
busy, of course. Too many other things going on in my personal
life. Too many other things going on in the lives I was close to. Too
busy in my business life.

If I can take away one lesson with me from this dark experience, it
is the one I wish to share with you -- when your intuition tells you to
do something not only once, but many times, ACT UPON IT. Your
intuition is your biggest friend, whether you know it now, or not.

It honestly hurts to know that I did nothing to follow up on my own
intuition in this sad, sad case. It is even sadder to know that I never
even knew the name of this pretty woman.

I dislike, and try to hardly ever use, the word, "if". It is usually used
in context with a negative circumstance. In this case though, I can
now only wonder would have happened, "If Only . . ."

© Rick Beneteau

About the Author

Rick is co-creator of the breakthrough Make Every Day A Great
Day Program. Read the powerful, life-changing testimonials
and discover how this revolutionary product can dramatically
change Your Life too!:
http://www.MakeEveryDayAGreatDay.com/yes

 

National Library of Medicine - National Institutes of Health
Part of the National Institutes of Health, the National Library of Medicine offers access to health information for consumer, patient, and physicians ...
www.nlm.nih.gov
 
Health and Medical Information produced by doctors - MedicineNet.com
Doctor-produced health and medical information written for you to make informed decisions about your health concerns.
www.medicinenet.com
 
Medicine in the Yahoo! Directory
Collection of sites for health professionals, with sections on specific disciplines, organizations, continuing education, conferences, publications, ...
dir.yahoo.com
 
MedlinePlus Health Information from the National Library of Medicine
Health information from the National Library of Medicine. Easy access to Medline and Health topics, medical dictionaries, directories and publications.
medlineplus.gov
 
Medicine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Medicine is a branch of health science and the sector of public life ... The practice of medicine combines both science as the evidence base and art in the ...
en.wikipedia.org
 
Journal Home - Nature Medicine
Nature Medicine has a vacancy for a Locum Assistant Editor for six months. The position involves working in all aspects of the editorial process, ...
www.nature.com
 
The New England Journal of Medicine: Research & Review Articles on ...
The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) is a weekly general medical journal that publishes new medical research findings, review articles, and editorial ...
content.nejm.org
 
eMedicine Clinical Knowledge Base
eMedicine features up-to-date, searchable, peer-reviewed medical journals, online physician reference textbooks, and a full-text article database in 62 ...
www.emedicine.com
 
Open Directory - Health: Medicine
the entire directory, only in Health/Medicine. Top: Health: Medicine (11429). Description · Medical Specialties (4888); Surgery (2265) ...
dmoz.org
 
the www virtual library biosciences medicine
www.ohsu.edu/cliniweb/wwwvl/ - Similar pages
 
Medicine - home
Bimonthly journal covering the latest results in clinical investigation relevant to hospital and office practice.
www.md-journal.com
 
Institute of Medicine
The Institute of Medicine serves as adviser to the nation to improve health.
www.iom.edu
 
ScienceDaily: Health & Medicine News
Medical Research News. Health news on everything from cancer to nutrition. Full-text, images, updated daily.
www.sciencedaily.com
 
Google Directory - Health > Medicine
Search only in Medicine Search the Web. Medicine. Health > Medicine, Go to Directory Home. Categories. Alternative Medicine (6308) Basic Sciences (66) ...
www.google.com
 
the world wide web virtual library biosciences medicine
www.mcb.harvard.edu/biopages/medicine.html - Similar pages
 
PLoS Medicine - A Peer-Reviewed Open-Access Journal
PLoS Medicine is a peer-reviewed, international, open-access journal published ... Every issue of PLoS Medicine contains a selection of readers' responses. ...
medicine.plosjournals.org
 
Medicine On-Line - Medicine Online -The International Medical Journal
Medicine Online - independent and peer reviewed journal published by Priory Medical Journals - priory.com.
www.priory.com
 
Entrez PubMed
PubMed is a service of the US National Library of Medicine that includes over 16 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
 
Stanford University School of Medicine
Home Page of the Stanford University School of Medicine.
med.stanford.edu
 
Medicine OnLine
Meds.com offers medical information and education on cancer (lung cancer, colon cancer, breast cancer, leukemia) and HIV / AIDS for patients, ...
www.meds.com