gotohealth's Blog

These are suggestions I am taking to heart from Professor Arthur Brooks. New Year Resoloutions go way back to ancient times. I want to make them positive with approach goals and mostly learning to manage the inside of my head. This needs to be reinforced with sharing and developing deeper friendships; especially for me, with the loss of Sam and my lonliness.

 

Personally, I'm approaching year 87 and with my good health, I want to think about continuing to live well for the next decades of my life having lunch with friends and maybe even driving myself.  Dr John Scharffenberg is 100-yrs-old, still drives, and travels alone around the world lecturing. Therefore, in March of 2025, I reinstated daily walking around Mercerdale Park. I made it to 3 rounds and my goal for 2026 is to be able to do 4 without my back ache. I also want to continue daily lifting 15 pounds 5 times until it becomes easy. The rest of our household have no problems with exercise.

 

Secondly, I will continue to avoid caffeine after 12 noon, suggested by Andrew Huberman, Stanford Neuroscientist, for better sleep. Also for better quality sleep I plan to write 5 things for which I'm grateful in the planner I got in my Santa stocking. I take a hot bath every night and during that period of meditation, I will think over my day; looking for new micro-perspectives. Then, before turning out the light, I will write 5 gratitude thoughts. 

 

As far as my resolution for household togetherness is concerned, I have learned in 2025 to use the suggestions of Jefferson Fisher, "Respond to negative comments with first a big breath." And most of the time, I just say nothing more.

 

Finally, a big word I have to look up the meaning for, is TRANCENDANCY, which I heard from Tim Ferris's suggestions of mood management and self talk. Like Actor and writer Mathew McConaughey suggests, "reach for excellence, greatness, spiritual and be excited about the few increments achieved." 

 

I want progress, not getting to the destination, with struggle and suffering if necessary.  The famous story of the preschoolers who waited and got a second marshmellow is my example. I've written: "Pursuing Happierness and Trancendency while sharing the love and deepening relationships", as my 2026 RESOLUTION! 

One day I was at a nutrition conference at the SeaTac Red Lion around 1978.  As I was taking notes I realized that "Healthy Cell" was composed of Heal Thy Cell and Sam created a mascot for our Heal -thy -self newletters. Note: Sam and I never missed a bi-monthly newsletter for our business from December 1976 until he passed in December 2017. That was 41 years times 6 issues each year, which equals 246 issues on nutrition and self-help to a good life without medication. I'm still on no medications at almost 87.

 

Secondly, I was remembering HORTON HEARS A WHO by Dr. Seuss and how the elephant found a whole civilization on flower petal it was observing. Similarly, our body cells are a replica of the world around us that build, govern, police our existence in Seattle or wherever one lives. Therefore, I - myself governs my existence and humans, all must learn to HEAL-THY-SELF with healthier food choices!

 

Sam had talked me, with my nursing degrees, into starting a Nutrition and Counseling home business using Shaklee products as the way to fiscally help with our family finances. I still maintain the business today.

 

Subsequently, around 1980, I created a presentation in which various vitamins, minerals, carbs, fats and proteins have their jobs, similar to real life careers. In subsequent blogs I will write about how the nutrients are identified and are the workers and building materials for all the cells that renew themselves; some daily like the lining of our stomach and some take 7 years to replace, like our bones. 

 

In our Japanese heritage values, most mastery of arts and culture are thought to take 10 years to become a master. Malcolm Gladwell writes in OUTLIERS about skill mastery taking 10,000 repetitions for skill building.  If one practices the piano, that would be 20 hours a week for 50 weeks and 10 years. 

 

Periodically, Healthy Cell will feature some of the parallels of nutrients such as Vitamin A which act like the security and police force in our body.  Interesting to find and learn about all these similarities to how humans govern society.

Steve's stories of love and friendship are heart warming and the story of Blossom the goose losing her mate Bud is epic. Dorie the worker at this place in Iowa put out a personal ad and another male goosemate was found with the above picture results.

 

Don't ever give up in finding "goose bumps" says the narrator.

Last Saturday @ Newport was their first competition for this school year. It was a long afternoon, but as I listen to Arthur Brooks describe ways to HAPPIERNESS, my granddaughter is learning some important values for life!

 

Brooks states, "Happiness is not an emotion and happierness on a daily basis has three ingredients = "Enjoyment, Satisfaction, Meaning."

 

The first ingredient is ENJOYMENT that includes people and memories. Too many of us choose pleasure and that has a dead end.

 

The second ingredient of SATIFACTION needs struggle and sacrifice. A good example is what Malcolm Gladwell describes in  OUTLIERS of developing a skill with 10,000 hours.

 

The third ingredient is MEANING. My granddaughter is one of the captains and finds meaning in her commitment for all four years of her high school career! 

 

The other day I asked her if she wants to be known as a NOUN or VERB?  Her immediate response was, "Of course, I want to be a VERB!"  A week ago, Sunday, we had 20+ girls in our living room, invited for the purpose of bonding and bringing meaning to their team!!

Yesterday morning, as I was driving my granddaughter to school, she said, "Did you know that Grandpa Lancaster passed yesterday?"

 

I answereed, "Yes, how do you feel about it?"

 

She responded, "Kind of like when Grandpa Goto died, kind of sad and maybe I want to go to the service,"

 

Then later in the day, I received the Grief Recovery book with my mail, explaining that death is a form of loss and can be positive as well. Grandpa died after a couple years of illness and is no longer suffering. 

 

My own last memory of Grandpa Lancaster was of sitting together in front of our fireplace after the memorial service for my husband and my feeling gratitude that he and is wife came all the way to Seattle from Riverside, CA, to. show their respect and honor Sam's life.

Nothing like the THANKFULNESS I feel to be living in a household where there is singing as she comes down the stairs in the morning to various parts of the day as she feels inspired!

OMOIDE (memories) is a program where I love being one of the leaders, since 1991, when Margaret Yasuda, Dell Uchida, Chuck Kato and I started meeting in my kitchen weekly to start. Janine Brodine is our “coach” and I’m the “manager” of our team. We meet the third Saturday of each month at the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Washington (JCCCW) in Seattle.

 

Janine and I met in 2012 when Sheryn Hara was the organizer of the Kirkland Book Festival. Sheryn published OMOIDE V (2011) - a compilation of OMOIDE I, II, III.  Janine and I shared a booth with our published material while Ats Kiuchi, like a Carnival Barker, invited patrons to come and look at our material. OMOIDE I (1993), II (1995), III (2001) were printed at Kinko with hand stapled booklets for friends and relatives for Christmas. OMOIDE IV was published in 2005 with a Kip Tokuda OSPI (Office of the Superintendent of Public Education) grant and with help from Yutaka Sasaki and the Tomita family’s West Coast Printing. OMOIDE readings were part of Seattle Film Festival (2014) narrated by Lori Matsukawa, filmed by Tyler Sipe.

 

Many OMOIDE writers lived through WWII and the 1942-1945 incarceration where 120,000 were housed in hastily built barracks when removed from the West Coast states’ restricted zone, approximately 400 miles in from the Pacific Ocean. 7000 of us were already living east of the zone, in the eastern states.

 

September 2025 was an enthusiastic session with 15 of us. Mako Kikuchi gave each of us an LP recording of his music, created in collaboration with our OMOIDE writers, depicting the WWII Japanese In America Incarceration. Mako and friends presented live at the Benaroya in 2023, as well as with our OMOIDE STORY READINGS at the Seattle Rep Theater that year. Our OMOIDE presentations were a sellout at the Rep Theater in both 2023 & 2024!

 

OMOIDE VI will be published soon with stories that depict Japanese Heritage Values practiced in America by the early immigrants and their descendants, as well as stories of those who immigrated after WWII and their descendants.

 

Currently, we are gathering stories for OMOIDE VII, stories of COMPASSION & KINDNESS, of those helping each other during hard times, especially from outside the Japanese American community, including memories before, during and after WWII. Our writing participants and stories are also of Shin-Issei, first generation immigrants from Japan after WWII, and stories of growing up in Japan. In 1924 the immigration law was passed where no more Asians could immigrate to the USA; rescinded with the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act which eliminated national-origin quotas.

 

One captivating story in September, was written by Nancy Hatfield. It was about her Auburn, WA, neighbor growing up, manning the periscope on a US submarine that helped rescue a raft of stranded Japanese enemy soldiers in the Sea of Japan; so soon after the USA/Japan peace agreement, that enemy wariness was an issue. 

 

As OMOIDE writers continue sharing, we seek collaboration with our neighbors of all heritages! We have impactful historical as well as current stories that need to be found and shared with the goal of WINNING WITH STORIES for human fulfillment!