Health: A fresh perspective

By Chris Grier
Posted 4/14/21

I have always appreciated a beautiful vintage car. The design and artistry combined with the workmanship needed to create them in the mid-1900’s has always impressed me.

I have also always …

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Health: A fresh perspective

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I have always appreciated a beautiful vintage car. The design and artistry combined with the workmanship needed to create them in the mid-1900’s has always impressed me.

I have also always appreciated Olympic athletes. Their dedication to their training along with their displays of skill have always inspired me.

As a Doctor of Chiropractic, I have made it my mission to help people restore their health and, more importantly, to help infants and young children grow up healthy and develop optimally.

As a car owner, while I have never owned a vintage car, I have always taken my grandfather’s advice that keeping a car properly maintained will save a lot of headaches and money in the future.

If I were a filmmaker, I would turn a couple of cars into characters, and here is how it would go:

Imagine, for instance an all-original equipment, showroom-quality 1965 Thunderbird. The year is 2021. Glistening chrome, deep red paint you can see your reflection in, the long horizontal lines that move your eye from the headlights to the rear bumper. The convertible top is down, revealing spotless light brown leather seats and like-new interior accents. Ahh… a thing of beauty.

Now imagine another 1965 Thunderbird with a cracked windshield, missing bumpers, rusty body and an interior with tattered seats and a broken instrument panel.

These two vehicles came off the same assembly line in Detroit. On the same day.

If they could talk to each other, can you imagine their conversation?

“Whoa, buddy, you look amazing! How did you accomplish that after 56 years on the road?”

“Oh, gosh, thank you. Honestly, it was simple. My owner washed me each weekend and never skipped. In fact, he enjoyed it tremendously. He drove me frequently, even really fast sometimes, and always made sure I had clean oil and fuel to help me perform my best. The rare times that things broke, or I ran rough, he noticed right away and repaired me immediately. It has been fun, and a pretty easy ride, actually. If you don’t mind me saying, I see you’re in pretty tough shape. Tell me how that happened?”

“Yes, that’s fine. It’s hard to hide it. My experience was much more difficult than yours. My owner didn’t do any of those things. He was always in too much of a hurry to clean the mud and grime off me. He would only open my hood when I would make terrible noises or my engine would smoke, and even then, he’d do as little as possible to get me running again and then wait until the next time I broke down. Sure, we drove fast at first, but once I wasn’t able to do that, he would often leave me parked for months at a time, hoping that he would have the money to fix me up someday. That day never came.”

And now I ask you, dear reader, which Thunderbird are you? And which would you rather be? Better yet, which Thunderbird do you want your children or grandchildren to be, and what can you do now to make sure that happens?

After all, human beings are designed to be healthy. When we give ourselves the proper care and keep our bodies tuned-up we can live vibrant, healthy lives well into old age.

That message was what drew me to practice chiropractic in the way that I do. It is a message of hope and resilience. It speaks to the incredible gift of health we have been given and the incredible responsibility we have to guard and protect that gift, while enjoying every minute of this precious life.

Dr. Chris Grier is a Wellness Chiropractor in Kalona who loves to enjoy nature with his family, coach baseball, and continue learning how to help human beings thrive.