Ways of dealing with illness

So for the first time in over a year now, i'm ill. I must admit, I'd forgotten what it felt like as well as how to deal with it. I've only got a cold granted, but this cold feels like it's taking over my body and turning me into a vegetable. I've only had it for three days, and on day one I sat down and made a list of all the things I would need and what I was going to do with myself. It went something like this...

Things I need

1. Olbas oil
2. Honey and Lemons
3. Menthol cough sweets
4. A tub of ice cream
5. Some chocolate
6. Some cake based food
7. Various gossip magazines
8. Laze around in bed all day doing nothing/watching TV

My point is this, why do we feel the need to buy things we don't actually need when we're ill? It isn't going to make us feel any better. I don't think reading the lurid details of some celebrities sordid affair is going to clear my blocked nose. Eating a lot of cake and chocolate wont stop my head pounding. In actual fact it'll probably just make me feel sick. So why do we do it?

Simple. We want an excuse to indulge and have the things that we normally feel bad about having. The excuse, 'I don't feel very well' has got us out of numerous things, when we were children it would get us the day off school, or even just not doing P.E. It makes our partners spoil us rotten, it makes our parents feel bad and try to baby us. We love it, we crave attention. As a species we have to be the most selfish beings on the planet, any excuse to think about ourselves and treat ourselves "for a change" and we'll take it.

So instead of doing that, i'm going to do this from now on. I'm going to get up out of bed, shower and get dressed and go and get some fresh air. I'm going to give money to a homeless person, put change in a charity box, do that thing or a friend that I was going to do last week, give blood, run a marathon. Lazing around wanting people to feel sorry for us isn't how we feel better. It's going out there and doing things for the people that are worse off and helping others that make us feel good. Remember this, it could always be worse!