Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for?” —Robert Browning

Wouldn’t it be nice to be perfect? To have a perfect mind, a perfect body, a perfect life? To enjoy perfect health, perfect relationships, a perfect job? To accomplish every goal we set? To get everything we want?

Dream on. I’ve often thought that as human beings, our job is to hold perfection up  as an ideal, an objective to be pursued, though never realized. As Union Army general Carl Schurz once said, “Ideals are like stars... you choose them as your guides, and following them, you reach your destiny.” I’m a firm believer in lifelong learning. If I couldn’t read, take seminars and classes, and listen to personal and professional growth programs, my life would be pretty empty. Although we may all be doomed to failure when it comes to achieving our full potential, I think we have to try. We owe it to ourselves, to the people we care about, and to our world. Ultimately, the purpose of life is to grow, and help others grow.

It’s not enough to just learn, however—maybe because it doesn’t fulfill our need to make a difference. I recently heard a seminar speaker  say,  “Information  without  implementation  leads  to depression.” For me, those words have the telltale ring of truth.

There’s a song called "Life Uncommon," by the singer-songwriter Jewel, that always lifts me up when I’m down. 

Here’s a taste of the chorus: 
Lend your voices only to sounds of freedom No longer lend your
strength to that which You wish to be free from Fill your lives with
love and bravery And you shall lead a life uncommon 

There exists in each of us a perfection that is very real— one that lies deep inside the very core of every person, and indeed, every living  thing.  It’s  something  that  D.D.  Palmer,  who  founded chiropractic  in  1895,  described  as  “Innate  Intelligence.”  Dr. Palmer chose the term “innate” to convey the idea of something we’re born with, something that’s part of our “inner essential nature.” In Dr. Palmer’s day, the word could also be used as a verb, meaning “to cause to exist” or “to call into being.”

Try  to  think  of  yourself  as  a ball  of  light,  filled  with  pure, intelligent energy. In truth, that’s what we are. Our bodies are simply a place for us to live, and we’re continually renewing and re-creating them from one instant to the next. The purpose of chiropractic care is to release the “imprisoned impulse” between our inborn, innate intelligence—the pure potential that is our essential nature—and its physical expression in our lives. That unseen connection between what we appear to be and what we truly  are  is  the  key  to  our  health,  our  happiness,  and  our evolution “onward and upward.” It’s the secret to living a life uncommon, allowing us to truly become all we were meant to be, and to transform ourselves and our world into a reality that even Robert Browning would be hard-pressed to imagine.

Chiropractic Newsletter
Well-Being
—Frank Bowling, DC
Appearing in Pathways to
Family Wellness Magazine