When I qualified as a Doctor at 25 years old, I thought I knew everything there was to know about health and medicine. By the age of 30, I realized my medical training was limited and I didn’t really know much about health and wellness. So I went on a journey of discovery to expand my horizons and studied acupuncture, Chinese medicine, Functional medicine, nutrition, yoga and Buddhism. By 50, I realized my life training was limited too as my daughter (a teenager at the time) was pointing out “how stupid” I was. And now that I am 55, I realize I have amassed a lot of knowledge but have so much more to learn.
As I get older and hopefully wiser with every year, certain insights become clearer. Here are some of them gleaned from the wisdom I have gained from 30 years of marriage, having a 22-year-old daughter, 30 years of practicing medicine and being a perpetual student of life.
1. More Real Food, Less “Food-like Substances”
2. More Fruit and Vegetables, Less Sugar, Wheat and Corn
3. More Organic, Less Toxic
4. More Chewing, Less Eating
5. More Water, Less Soda
6. More Recycling, Less Waste
7. More Walking, Less Driving
8. More Exercising, Less Watching TV
9. More Outdoors, Less Indoors
10. More Sleep, Less Worry
11. More Calm, Less Chaos
12. More Being, Less Doing
13. More Consciousness, Less Ignorance
14. More Smiles, Less Anger
15. More Love, Less Hatred
16. More Play, Less Serious
17. More Letting Go, Less Holding On
18. More Forgiving, Less Blaming
19. More Generosity, Less Greed
20. More Ubuntu, Less Me!

Ubuntu means what makes us human is the humanity we show each other. It is a Xhosa (South African) word and philosophy emphasizing community, sharing and generosity.
As Archbishop Desmond Tutu says: “Ubuntu is about the essence of being human, it is part of the gift that Africa will give the world. It embraces hospitality, caring about others, being able to go the extra mile for the sake of others. We believe that a person is a person through another person, that my humanity is caught up, bound up, inextricably, with yours. When I dehumanize you, I inexorably dehumanize myself. The solitary human being is a contradiction in terms and therefore you seek to work for the common good because your humanity comes into its own in belonging”.
Frank Lipman MD is the creator of Eleven Eleven Wellness, Guided Health Solutions, a leading edge integrative health program. He is also the founder and director of the Eleven Eleven Wellness Center in NYC, where he practices a combination of Western and Eastern Medicine and the many other complimentary modalities he has studied. He is the author of the recent REVIVE: Stop Feeling Spent and Start Living Again (2009) (previously called SPENT) and TOTAL RENEWAL: 7 Key Steps to Resilience, Vitality and Long-Term Health (2003). and Follow Dr. Frank Lipman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/lipmo