Vitals Of Life

21 May Vitals Of Life

Medically, there are up to four vital signs (aka vitals) used to gauge the health or otherwise of every person. Vitals suggest that these are the life-sustaining signs to look out for in every patient to make an initial call on the severity of their case. In hospitals, these are usually carried out by the triage nurses before a Doctor is involved. They are pulse (or heart) rate, body temperature, breathing (or respiratory) rate, and the blood pressure. An aggregate of these vitals signs will generate a score used for decision making on the next course of action. From the readings taken at the moment of arrival at the emergency unit, if the aggregate scores start to deteriorate, then immediate action is taken to attend to such people. If you’ve ever had a seemingly unjust treatment at such emergency units, this will probably explain why someone who arrives later than you gets seen before you.

As vitals are to physical health, so they are to our financial, spiritual and emotional life. In the UK, for example, vitals for your car comes in the form of MOT (an annual test to measure the general health and road worthiness of your car). Dentists do vitals to check the health of your teeth and gum. Your bankers gauge vitals for your finances. Your realtors assess the past, current, and future health of your estate portfolio, and so on.

However, while specialists mostly determine most of the physical life vitals, spiritual vitals are different. Self-assessment is the only viable way of gauging your spiritual health. In other words, spiritual vitals are more of ‘do it yourself’ (DIY) obligations. Sadly, this has meant people either do not take it seriously enough, or worst still set themselves good scores when indeed they are off the standards.

So, how do I know my score on the vital life signs? How do I know if I am doing things rightly or wrongly? What are the signs that I am making good progress or regressing? These and many more answers are what my next titles will discuss. Watch this space.

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