Car care vs. health care.

I am sure that you have heard of the term "having a monkey on your back," which means any strong addiction viewed as a burden. Well, in today's world, it seems that the car (automobile) is a "monkey on our backs" and is costing us plenty of stress and poor health.

I am sure you know what a car note is, as you drive that new car from the showroom. It's a payment that you'd better make each month or that car will be gone. How many times after purchasing a car have you heard your phone ring at any hour, night or day, reminding you that you are 15 days late on the payment of that shiny new vehicle? Who in the hell needs that stress?

If you think about it, you could enjoy good health and live longer if you didn't have that car note. Just think of the many words that start with the letters c, a, r that cause stress, such as car note, car sickness, car wash, carpool, car maintenance, car garage, car jockey (when parking a car for that $40 clip), carport, car maker, carburetor trouble, carbon monoxide (exhaust gas that kills you), and you can add the rest!

Health terms that start with c, a, r are carcass, (dead body), cardiac arrest, cardiopulmonary diseases, cardiograms, carditis (inflammation of the heart), etc. I hope you can see that the letters c, a, r, are involved with our cars and our health.

I strongly suggest that if you wish to free yourself from car stress and improve your health, try to keep your car for at least ten years with good maintenance and avoid those car notes. Really, a car should last for at least two hundred thousand miles if cared for. You can last at least one hundred years if you don't have a car note.

As Bishop Sheen stated many years ago, you can shine a car all day and at the end of that day it will never pick up its fenders and put them around you and say I love you; therefore you have to love people and use cars, rather than to love cars and use people.

My father had a car that lasted from 1935 until 1955 because he maintained it well. He also lived a long life because he maintained his health as well.

I am sure that if you didn't have that car note, along with that over inflated gas bill, you would be able to enjoy a seventh day of rest as stated in the book of Hebrews 4:4 â€" "God rested on the seventh day from all His works."

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE)

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By Gerald W. Deas, M.D.