This is a great article about a soccer star and relates to what I do as a chiropractor and health educator. Enjoy!
We hear so many sordid tales about professional athletes being accused and found guilty across a spectrum of awful transgressions, from drug abuse to gun violence to domestic disputes to barroom brawls and everything in between.
That’s why it’s so refreshing and uplifting when a sportsman acts with great charity, without fanfare or cultural pressure, just out of the goodness of his heart.
It seems that Arsenal’s star soccer player, Mesut Ozil, who led Germany to the World Cup, has decided to donate a major chunk of his $500,000 winner’s bonus to provide some much-needed surgeries for underprivileged kids in Brazil, as a gesture of appreciation for the great hospitality the Brazilians showed him, and to commemorate Germany’s timeless 1-0 victory over Argentina.
Twenty-three children will receive life-saving treatment they could never otherwise afford, because of the consciousness and benevolence of this sports hero.
Why don’t we hear more about such acts of munificence? I’m sure there’s a lot of good done each day, but the news is consumed with the darker side, the schadenfreude of the media viewers assuaged only by blood, greed and wrongdoing. It’s no less heroic to donate money to help children than it is to help them one’s self – every role is important.
That’s why I enjoy hearing about chiropractic missions, designed to bring doctors of chiropractic to areas that have no other access to our all-natural approach, and providing hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of people with adjustments that can potentially change their lives forever.
But it doesn’t have to be all that dramatic and oversized to be significant – there’s a lot you can do right from where you are.
For example, you can associate yourself with causes you believe in and want to support. You can speak on your chosen perspective and move people emotionally to engage. You can encourage patients to do good, paying it forward with random acts of kindness. You can sponsor a deserving family or several deserving families for chiropractic care that they would not be able to receive without your help. And you can use the bully pulpit of your practice to preach a message of health and wellness, and save lives every day.
I never tire of the amazing stories our members tell us about the miraculous healing benefits of chiropractic care. In my own practice, I saw a blind woman regain her sight, cancers remiss, infertile couples conceive, and chronic illness fade into oblivion, leaving glowing vitality in its place. We do amazing work, and it’s up to us to promote it and bring as many people toward it as possible. I’m for successful people sharing the wealth by helping poor children, but I’m even more for getting chiropractic to as many people as possible so fewer end up needing more radical interventions.
Chiropractors have the unique vantage point of daily service at the deepest and most intimate levels. Exercise your influence to make a huge difference in the lives of those you touch and serve – if we all did it, the world would be a lot better place.
Dennis Perman DC,
for The Masters Circle
