CHAPTER 1

Health and Mindfulness

Everyone knows health is wealth. But is it? Do youtruly believe it? Let me tell
you a story. Once upon a time, there lived a king. He enjoyed hunting and would often go
on hunting sprees for several days along with his soldiers. Once, he went hunting in a
remote forest. The weather was hot and he felt thirsty. He looked around to find his
soldiers, but couldn’t see anyone. He realized that he had lost his way. He was feeling
thirsty and lost all at once. Soon he heard some sounds coming from the forest. He started
approaching the sound and found a woodcutter who was busy cutting off the trees. He
asked him to give him some water. The woodcutter recognized the king and bowed to
him. He ensured him,” Your Highness, I am at your service. Please let me know how can
I serve you?”
The King replied,” Give me some water and show me the way back to get past
this forest.” The woodcutter gave the king some water to quench his thirst and led him to
the way out of the forest. The king was pleased with the wood woodcutter and told him,”
Whenever you visit the capital city, do come to the palace and I promise to give you a
magnificent prize.” The wood woodcutter bowed again to the King as he left for the
Palace.
It was evening and the woodcutter got his pile of sticks ready and started his
journey back home. When he reached home, he narrated the incident of meeting the King
today in the forest and also that he promised to give him the prize. After listening to him,
his wife suggested leaving for the palace tomorrow itself and visiting the King.
So, the wood woodcutter decided to visit the Palace tomorrow. The next morning,
the woodcutter reached the Palace and asked soldiers to let him meet the King. The
soldiers informed the King about the woodcutter and he was at once welcomed inside the
Palace.
The King saw the woodcutter in old and dirty clothes. He started wondering, how
can he help him in the best possible which can improve his life. After pondering for a
while, he decides to gift him a Sandalwood Garden which had hundreds of Sandalwood
trees. Thinking that the woodcutter would know the sandalwood trees, he gifts him the
beautiful Sandalwood Garden. The woodcutter was more than happy to receive his prize.
He happily went home and told his wife.
He started taking care of the garden. Being a woodcutter by profession, he only
knew about cutting trees. So, he made coal out of cutting all trees and started selling coal.
This way gradually most of the trees were cut and sold out as coal. One day the king
thought of visiting the Sandalwood Garden and meeting the Woodcutter. He thought he
might have preserved the garden beautifully and might have made it even better. When
the King reached the garden, he was shocked to see its condition. The garden was
destroyed, most of the trees cut, and piles of coal stacked around. He was puzzled. He
asked the woodcutter,“What happened? What have you done to this garden?”
 The woodcutter replied,“Thank you, your Highness, for gifting me this garden. I
turned the trees into coal and sold them. My family is now in slightly better financial
condition. We were so poor, but because of your blessings, we are doing fine now.”
The King understood that the woodcutter was not aware of the fact that it was a
sandalwood garden and destroyed most of the trees and didn’t say a word further. He
picked up a piece of wood lying around and gave it to the wood woodcutter saying,“Take
this small piece of wood and go sell it in the market.”
The woodcutter did as the King said. He was surprised at the price he received
from that small piece of wood. He understood that it was a very precious wood that he
sold at the price of peanuts. He ran back to the king and started apologizing to him. He
said,“You gave me a diamond and it turned it into coal. Please forgive me.”
The above story is not about the ignorance of the woodcutter, the king, or the
sandalwood trees. The story is about you and me. Our body is the Sandalwood Garden.
We are privileged to have a healthy and well-functional body. If we don’t value it and
don’t take proper care of it, this sandalwood garden may get destroyed with time with
only a few trees left. Then, the time might have slipped from our hands and it might be
too late to rebuild it. So, now is the right time to nourish our body and maintain it to the
optimum levels of functionality. I will be discussing how to do so in this chapter.
Everything in the universe is running in cycles and has some kind of symmetry.
The earth takes 365 days to orbit around the sun, the nature works its cycle of seasons
such as autumn, spring, summer, and monsoon in a regular fashion. Hence, it is the basic
nature of life to work in an organized way, then how can we humans just live our lives by
going with the flow? We are capable of creating our flow and living more consciously by
developing a proactive approach. We just need to figure out the answers to these two
simple questions:
1. What do I want from life?
2. What can I give back to life?

Having a healthy mind and body is the priority of every human being. 20s is
atransitional phase in our life. During the early 20s, we have just stepped out of college,
or are probably studying, or have just started working as a professional. Most of us aim
for what others have already achieved and just want to go a few steps ahead of them. If
our senior has become VP in 10 years, you want to achieve the same goal in a relatively
less time, if someone has stated a company that has become a unicorn firm in 5 years,
then probably you are aiming for releasing the IPO in 5 years. If someone has bought a
home and settled down, you want to do the same. All we want is to get a notch higher
than what we already have known or seen around us. While running in this rat race, we
often get caught up so much that we forget to prioritize our physical and mental health.
Whether you are already spic and span fit or you want to be one, let’s first look
into the reasons for taking care of your health and having a fitness routine during your 20s
when most of you believe that everything is working fine for you.