Something funny happened the other day. I was working and my eyes started feeling dry and irritated. I work in an eye hospital and the doctor is literally one floor down.
And my first thought was, I'll get it checked later.
Later? I am already here. The solution is twenty steps away. But somehow my brain still found a way to postpone it.
If someone who works inside a hospital, surrounded by eye doctors every single day, can find reasons to delay a simple checkup, I can imagine the friction for someone who has to take a day off work or travel long distances, and pay out of pocket just to see if something is wrong.
We talk a lot about healthcare access in terms of infrastructure. Whether it’s more hospitals, more clinics, or even more doctors and all of that matters. But there is another barrier that doesn't get enough attention: the barrier in our own heads. The voice that says it is probably fine. The instinct to wait until it gets worse.
I finally went and it just took five minutes. Luckily, everything was fine.
But that friction I felt, even with zero obstacles in my way, gave me more empathy for the people we are trying to reach than any report ever has.
And honestly, it's not just health. We all do this. The gym membership we keep paying for but don't use. The yearly health checkup we push to next month. The call to a friend we keep meaning to make. We stay so busy with things that feel urgent that we forget to make time for the things that are also very important.
My brother recently got me to read Sahil Bloom’s 5 Types of Wealth, and it put into words something I had been feeling for a while. We spend so much energy building financial wealth that we quietly let everything else slide. Our health. Our relationships. Our time. Bloom talks about five types of wealth: time, social, mental, physical, and financial. And if I am being honest, most of us are probably doing well on one and ignoring the rest without even noticing.
One line from the book that has stuck with me: “Your wealthy life may be enabled by money, but it will be defined by everything else.”
One question I keep coming back to: Why do we tend to delay the things that directly impact our wellbeing?