All of us have had life-changing experiences at one time or another. I had such an experience in regards to my realization of how important it is to care of myself and my body. This is my story that I like to call “The Books Up the Stairs”. After you read it, it may change your life perspective as it did mine.

The Books Up The Stairs

I had an experience once that made me see quite clearly how blessed we all are to have a body with which we can improve. Let me tell you what happened to me one day while giving a business workshop at a local community college. I regularly sold books at the end of each workshop, so I usually took with me several boxes, depending on the size of the class. The class on this day was on the third floor, and I would usually just take the freight elevator to haul me and my cases of books, placed on a hand truck, up to my class.

The Elevators Were Out of Order

But on this bright and sunny afternoon day, the elevators were out of order…so, I had to place my boxes of books on my dolly, and pull them up three flights of stairs, step-by-step. I was fussing and fuming, mad and mumbling to myself about the incompetency of the college administration allowing the freight elevators to get out of order and not fixing them rapidly so that impatient and fatigued professors like myself wouldn’t have to haul them, huffing and puffing up the stairs. And, I continued to moan and groan about my “plight”. I finally make it up to the top landing of the class location.

The Moment of Truth

Just at that very moment, that I made it up grudgingly to the top of the stairs, a young man, quadriplegic, paralyzed from the neck down, driving his motorized wheelchair, with only slight right and left movements of his neck, rolls right in front of me as I make it to the top and says with the brightest smile that you could ever imagine: “Beautiful day for a walk, isn’t it?” Wow! I was left stunned and speechless. A tear of embarrassment rolled down my cheek. Right then and there, I had a clear realization of how truly blessed I was to have all of my limbs with the ability to have pulled those books up those stairs. Do you think for one minute that this quadriplegic young man would have minded trading places with me in order to experience what it feels like to pull several boxes up three flights of stairs by his own effort? Yes, ladies and gentlemen, each of us are truly blessed, if we have full use of all of our limbs, it thus becomes our duty and responsibility to fully honor this gift by taking loving care of what we have been so graciously given by God.

Yours in health,

Charles Prosper

“The 12-Week Fitness Guru”

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