Mental Health and Well Being

So have been talking a lot about physical health, what about mental health?

Its all very well having a healthy body. What about a healthy mind. Recently I have been writing a lot about physical health (see Health is a Choice & Cycling Goals) but nothing about mental health and mental well being. What do I know about this? Not much to be honest! But I have always had a fairly active and inquiring mind and so I am hopeful I may have some insights. To be honest, I haven't really challeneged my mind outside work for a long time now. I mean, my job is pretty challenging, but outside of work, well, I don't really do much. I used to go home and watch TV, spend time with the family, play with nieces and nephews and watch mindless TV. Of late I have cut out SOME of the TV and substituted that with excercise (not bad) but there must be a space for mental growth outside of work and outside of excercise.

Setting mental health goals seems fairly ephemeral to me. Its hard to put your finger on exactly what they are. I suppose one could set, for example, language goals: Master Chinese or Japanese, or mathematical goals: Master Real Analysis and Calculus. Of course the latter will never really benefit you unless you work in that area where it requires that sort of mental ability. The former, well that is something that could be achieved and is useful. I live in Taiwan and Chinese would be incredibly useful (I do speak a bit, but I am not fluent) and Japanese, well it could be useful as many Japanese people visit Taiwan. It seems therefore, it might be neccessary to set goals that will be useful in your day-to-day life to make sense of them.

Some other goals one could set is to read more high-quality literature: e.g. Read all of Shakespeares plays in a year. This is something I used to do fairly well: I used to read a lot. Not so much anymore. Perhaps that should be one of my goals. Also, something esle that has always fascinated me is economics. Perhaps I should set this as a goal, but once again it seems intangible. At least I would be able to understand better what people write in The Economist! And there is something else you can do: Set a goal to read high-quality journals (like The Economist) at least once a week. You gain knowledge of the world and challenge yourself.

You could set very clear and tangible goals for yourself such as getting a degree. For example a few years ago I challenged myself to do an MBA. It worked, I am now a graduate. You could too.

I need to figure out my own intellectual goals that I hope to achieve in the next few years. Not sure what they are yet. Will write them down once I know. But I think getting back onto the Chinese bandwagon and reading Shakespeare is a good place to start. How about you? What will your mental goals be?

Hope you can define your intellectual goals more clearly than me.
PKS