P: The young are flexible and resilient. They have vitality, which enables them to recover quickly from sickness or injury. However, when you get old, even one bout of illness will age you significantly. This is why the old should not work as strenuously as they did when they were young. Overworking is a sign of greed since you are forcing yourself to work beyond a reasonable limit. When you get old, you should only work up to the point that your body is not strained.
Farmers who have overworked since they were young tend to keep overworking even in old age. When the sun sets while they are planting rice seedlings in the rice fields, they should stop and resume working the next day. However, they continue working in the darkness until all the seedlings are planted and end up suffering from aches and pains all night. Therefore, people should not be greedy about working and should make a habit of ending work when the work day is over and resuming the next day.
While working moderately is beneficial to our health, working excessively and strenuously will likely shorten our lives. Extreme athletes tend to have a shorter life expectancy than the average person because they place enormous strain on their bodies for a certain period in their lives. To take cars as an example, we measure the lifespan of cars by their mileage, not by the years owned. Moreover, if we speed or drive them excessively during a short time period, the lifespan is significantly reduced. Therefore, if we drive moderately without exceeding the speed of 55 to 65 miles per hour, a car will last for good two to three decades.
Which job do you think gives people the longest and healthiest lives in the world? Most people believe it’s farming, but that’s not actually true. Farmers tend to overwork, so it is very rare for them to live past the age of one hundred. Those who are slightly lazy don’t overly exert themselves, so they may enjoy longevity.
In terms of occupation, shepherds tend to live the longest. They walk a great deal every day but do not engage in arduous activities that can be taxing on the body. Besides, grazing pastures tend to be located roughly between 1,640ft and 3,300ft above the sea level, and the air quality is purest at approximately 2,300ft. The combination of good air and moderate exercise enable the shepherds to be healthy.
Moderate exercise is good for your health. Also, rather than exercising in a gym, it is best to engage in modest labor in your everyday life such as washing the dishes, cleaning the house, and farming if you live in the countryside. Spending excessive time in bed because you don’t feel well can in fact also be detrimental to your health. Even though it may be hard, it is best to keep moving to some extent. You need to keep walking, though your legs may hurt, so that your leg muscles don’t become stiff.
Lack of exercise and overexertion are both harmful to your health. Even machines tend to break down easily either when left unused for a long period of time or used excessively. Modest usage will make them last the longest. Houses will be damaged from both overuse and underuse, so they should be used moderately to maintain them in good shape and prolong their lifespan.
There are instances in which people who have not had a sick day in their lives die suddenly. It usually happens because these people were overly confident about their health and taxed their bodies beyond a certain limit. Especially, when people reach beyond the age of sixty, they need to be careful about their health, but those who have never been ill are not prepared slowdown in their old age. As a result, they overexert themselves without taking into account their physical condition and may experience an incident like a heart attack.
There is a saying that goes, “He who suffers from a chronic illness lives to be 80.” It means that people with poor health usually take good care of their bodies and end up living longer than healthy people. Of course living longer is not necessarily a good thing. However, as people get older, their bodies weaken, so they need to be wise about adjusting their activity level to that appropriate for their age.
