Why do we call what medical professionals do, health care? We don’t call what lawyers do, legal care; or what electricians do, electrical care; or what accountants do, financial care; or what airlines do, transportation care.

Do medical professionals provide health care? They do indeed provide services that improve our health — procedures, technologies, and access to medications. But what about heart-felt care? Are there appropriate levels of caring and compassion in America’s health care industry?

Medical offices today are run like businesses – selling treatments for disease or injury. My personal experience is that it is difficult to find a doctor who seems to care. (Fortunately I have one now.) However, most doctors I have personally seen, quickly and mechanically address my symptoms while ignoring me as a person.

One of the greatest healing forces in the world is the genuine care, compassion, and concern of another human being. Dr. Patch Adams grasped that concept and has been promoting for years the idea of heart-felt care as a tool for healing. The movie about him staring Robin Williams helps debunk the myth that care is the major focus of our health care system.

Perhaps it is time to drop the word “care” from the health care industry. We could call it: “the health treatment industry” or “the health technology industry” or “the medical services industry” or “the medical industry.” Or we could bring back the diminishing art of medical services offered with compassion by caring human beings.

The art of treating people with heart-felt care and concern is also diminishing in other industries and organizations. Perhaps it is time we all sought to improve our ability to care for and help others.

Motivation Quotation: “Keep a watchful eye over yourself as if you were your own enemy; for you cannot learn to govern yourself, unless you first learn to govern your own passions and obey the dictates of your conscience.” –Kahil Gibran

Thoughts For A Motivated Life: As human beings we all have a tendency to think, say, and do things that cause us harm. Sometimes, we let our mind run away with itself. At other times, we put our foot in our mouth. And we sometimes pull the chair out from under ourself. Why?

Rather than learning to direct what we think, say, and do rationally and logically, we tend to think, say, and do whatever feels good at the moment. But feelings are fickle — frequently false. Still we fall for feelings, over and over, even thought they frequently fake us out and lead us into pain.

As long as we allow our feelings to flop us around, we will never have real hope in life. Only by learning to govern our passions (our feelings) can we gain the ability to turn our thoughts, words, and behaviors away from self-inflicted pain and toward self-improvement.

Until the voice of our conscience is stronger than the voice of our negative feelings, we will struggle to live an emotionally fulfilling life. And guilt will stalk us in the shadows.

So what is leading your life? Are you led by feelings, led by your mind, or led by your conscience?

Cravings and compulsions — should we cooperate with them or combat them? As a rehab counselor working with addicts and alcoholics, my job is to help people combat their cravings and compulsions. And popular opinion today seems to be that the craving to get drunk and the compulsion to use drugs should be controlled.

It is not easy to overcome the compulsive use of drugs and/or alcohol (or any compulsion for that matter). Many of the people who I work with relapse and begin to cooperate with their cravings once again. However when addicts or alcoholics relapse, society doesn’t say that recovery doesn’t work and shouldn’t be attempted. Just because someone falls off the wagon, doesn’t mean that they cannot be free or that the idea of freedom from bondage to drugs and alcohol shouldn’t be preached.

I recently read a newspaper story about how some Southern Baptists have established ministries to help people overcome a particular compulsion and craving. It tells about one woman who succeeded for several years and then relapsed. She recently came to Nashville to try to persuade Southern Baptists to stop those ministries that help people get free from homosexual cravings and behaviors.

If drug and alcohol rehabs followed the same logic, they would all shut down. After all, a very big percentage of those attempting recovery relapse. However, that doesn’t negate the importance of recovery efforts.

Have you ever seen a movie that shows people wading through a swamp? When they get out of the swamp water and on dry land, what is usually attached to the people’s bodies? That’s right. Leeches! Then the people jump into action pulling the leeches off themselves and each other.

Whew! I sure don’t want any leeches on me. But could there be mental leeches — self-destructive or tormenting thoughts that attach themselves to the human brain? My experience with my own mind and working with other human beings tells me that there are indeed leech thoughts that wrap around and cling to the our brains.

If leeches left on the human body can cause sickness and even death, what can leech thoughts left on the human brain cause? Here are just a few things: depression, fear, anxiety, resentment, addiction, low self-esteem, inner torment, hatred, worry, insecurity, compulsions, paranoia, guilt, violence, and all sorts of personal misery.

Just like you can pull a leech off your body, you can also pull a leech thought off your brain. It isn’t easy, because sometimes those leech thoughts have been attached for many years. But you can pick your brain clean, tormenting thought by tormenting thought, and climb on the shore of inner peace.

A recent headline in The Tennessean read: “African Fossils Challenge Theory Of Human Evolution.” Guess how many fossils? Two.

That’s right. Some scientists have changed the theory of human evolution based on two African fossils, a skull and an upper jaw bone, found in 2000 in Kenya. The Tennessean says: “The discovery by Meave Leakey, a member of a famous family of paleontologists, shows two species of human ancestors lived at the same time in Kenya. That pokes holes in the chief theory of man’s early evolution.”

Here is a question for you. If the theory of evolution is so shaky that it can be altered by only two bones, how reliable can it be? I sure don’t want to put my faith and trust in something that is built on such little evidence as two African fossils. Do you?