The true value of health, time and strength

For most of our childhood and adolescence—if we’re lucky—death and illness exist in the background. We know they're real, but they don't concern us. These truths live in a quiet corner of our minds, distant and unthreatening. Life feels abundant. We're too busy living to notice how fragile it all is. It’s like walking across a vast desert. We trust the ground beneath our feet, unaware that it’s made of millions of shifting grains. Time, health, and strength are just like that—quietly slipping through us as we go about our days.

The Slow Shift

In my early years during college, I moved a lot—football nearly every day, swimming on weekends, and short walks between home and school. It kept me healthy without even trying. Back then, school was just ten minutes away. Everything was close. Life was physical by default.

Then came university. Everything changed. My commute alone took at least three hours a day. Add coursework, assignments, and a part-time job to the mix, and my lifestyle shifted from active to sedentary almost overnight. It happened so fast that I didn’t even notice. Then days blurred into weeks, and weeks into years.

By then, I was deep into full-time work and then my PhD. I was now tired all the time, had developed anxiety, slept poorly and couldn't eat that well. I had noticed weight added around the waist and just generally felt slower. Still, I thought I was fine—until the day I tried playing a friendly football match again. I could barely breathe. My chest pounded, my vision blurred, and I gasped for air. I immediately knew something was wrong. I had assumed I still had the stamina of my college days. I was wrong.

I tried running with friends—same outcome. It was a wake-up call. My strength had faded, and I hadn’t even noticed.

"You may have a hundred problems, but when you lose your health, you have only one."
— Imam Al-Shafi'i ¹

That’s when I decided to work to gain back what I had lost. I returned to football matches, went for runs. Gradually, my fitness improved. I began to see so much positive impact—better appetite, better sleep, better mood, less anxiety—that I’ve turned it into a lifestyle. I now try to swim on a weekly basis. I even joined a gym to work on building and preserving my strength. Today, I feel stronger. I feel more at ease in my own body. I can run for over an hour, play football matches with friends 5–10 years younger than me and keep pace. I try to keep a routine and dedicate time for this.

But then the question comes: What is the point of all this?

Experiencing Loss

Last year, I experienced two losses that were very hard to process. Both came without warning. First, a childhood friend—gone in a tragic accident. Then, just a week later, my uncle—the one I was closest to. I felt like I had been slammed across my whole body. The grief was physical. He had worked so hard his entire life, rarely rested, never travelled, and passed away just shy of 60. He never got the rest he deserved. There’s so much beauty in this world—so much joy and light—I just wish he had the chance to see and experience more of it.

Losing them changed something in me. Mortality stopped being a distant concept. It became personal. Real. And I started thinking more deeply about the things we often take for granted—health, time, strength. They’re the quiet foundations of our lives. Yet we often overlook them—until we can’t.

I began to ask myself: What kind of life do I want to live—really—before it’s my turn to go?

And the answer that slowly emerged was this: health, time, and strength are not trophies to admire, but tools to use. They are simply means—a way to keep showing up in the life I care about, to keep moving forward, to be present for the moments that matter most.

"I have led a toothless life. I have never bitten into anything. I was waiting. I was reserving myself for later on—and I have just noticed that my teeth have gone."
— Jean-Paul Sartre ²

Often, we put off things we want to do. We think we’ll get to them eventually. We assume the strength, the time, the health will still be there when we’re ready. But the longer we wait, the more uncertain it becomes.

Time Isn’t Just a Number

Time, like health and strength, is complex. We often assume that living to 90 means living fully. But I’ve started to wonder—is that always true? Some people live more in 30 years than others do in 80. Because life isn’t only about how long we live—it’s about how deeply we live.

This isn’t me claiming to have the answers. These are just thoughts I’ve been sitting with. What does it mean to live fully? Is it ticking off every box on a list? Or is it about being truly present—feeling the quiet, beautiful weight of each moment?

Is it dying with millions in the bank, a sculpted body, and a team of people attending to you? Or is it perhaps...

...experiencing the gentle caress of someone you love? Laughing at a silly midnight joke? Sharing dinner with your parents? Holding the tiny hand of a human you helped bring into this world? Tasting a new spice in a faraway country? Sitting in silence with someone who understands you?

Maybe it’s all of it. Or maybe it’s just some of it. But surely, it starts with noticing the moment you’re already in.

The Delicate Balance

The truth is we don’t know how much time we have. We don’t know how long our health will last. We don’t know when our strength will begin to fade. We don't know have much sand we have before it all runs out.

If we hold on too tightly, trying to preserve these things for the perfect time, we might never get to use them. But if we waste them, thinking they’re endless, we might run out before we’ve truly lived.

Personally, I don’t want to reach the end with a perfect, unused body. I want to use my strength while I still can. I want to savour the time I have. To me that is the only logical reason for going to the gym and lifting those weights.

---

Reflect and Act

If you’ve read this far, thank you. Maybe you’ve felt something similar. Maybe not. Either way, I’d love for you to take a moment and ask yourself:

Are you spending your health, your time, and your strength in a way that truly matters to you?

Because in the end, we don’t get to keep them. We only get to use them—while they last. Like travellers crossing a desert, we carry only so much water—so much energy, time, and life. The path may be long or short, but what we carry must be used wisely.

---

Notes & References

1. Imam Al-Shafi'i (767–820 CE) was a renowned Islamic jurist and theologian. He founded the Shafi'i school of Islamic jurisprudence and is respected for his contributions to legal theory and ethics. The quote is widely attributed to him in various Islamic wisdom compilations.
2. Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) was a French existentialist philosopher, novelist, and playwright. The quote comes from his autobiographical work: Words (Les Mots).