RESPONSIBILITY...................We have a very forgiving society.  Sometimes TOO forgiving for our own good.  In eons past, many of those who couldn't participate in the hunt died.  We have, as a general rule, adopted many "safety nets" to prevent this from happening.  This, however, shouldn't abrogate our personal responsibility to keep our bodies as strong as possible.

     We have very few physical demands to accomplish our basic survival in modern times.  Transportation, food, and shelter of some sort are available to most, and require little physical activity to obtain.  While our society, admirably, tries to ensure that all have basic survival needs, we have, if we choose, the luxury to neglect or abuse our bodies with inactivity, excessive food, and various natural and chemical substances in order to achieve a temporary, but false, sense of well-being.

     The pervasive use of alcohol and various drugs is a symptom of a larger problem.  I certainly won't solve it here, but at least we can try to put it in some perspective.  If we allow ourselves to fall into that trap, we are banking on the largess of others if those societal "safety nets" fail.     This surfaces most frequently, during natural or man-caused disasters. Earthquakes, fires, floods, tsunami, terrorist attacks.  The thin veil of safety in society is instantly stripped away, and we are, without notice nor consult, INSTANTLY slammed back to CAVEMAN status.  The survival instincts are hard-wired and still intact.  If you are, however, trapped inside a body rendered ineffective by decades of inactivity and self-abuse, the usefulness of your survival instincts is minimized.  You need to be able to run down 50 flights of stairs, climb a tree to avoid flood waters, fight off an attack, jump out of the way of a speeding car in an intersection, DRAG YOUR CHILDREN OUT OF A BURNING BUILDING,  ....................get my drift?  Fear and adrenaline will help you to do more than you can normally do regardless of your physical condition, but let's face it, if your lungs are destroyed by tobacco, and you are 50 lbs. overweight, your arteries are clogged , and your knees and ankles have succumbed to 20 years of bearing excessive weight, your response will be limited.

     Start TODAY.............take back that evolutionary body with which you were gifted at birth.  Fuel it properly, hone it, use it.  If you never need to run down 50 flights of stairs, GREAT!  You'll still live a better life.