Bob Cutillo

“The first wealth is health.”
― Bob Cutillo, Pursuing Health in an Anxious Age

“consider another way, where health is received as a gift. Rather than seeing health as a material good managed for our personal happiness, we receive it as a precious endowment. What would that mean for why we pursue health and how we shape health care? First, endowments are not given in equal portions; therefore, health will not be received in equal amounts. This is verified by our everyday experiences; some are born with longevity in their genes and strength in their bodies, while others struggle almost daily with disability and disease. If we begin in different places, this necessarily means that there is no abstract ideal of health. Rather than pursuing perfect health, we will nurture the health we have received. In addition, we will create health care in ways that strengthen what we have been given instead of reaching for what we do not have or tightly grasping what we cannot keep. Second, as we increasingly see health as a gift, we become better able to discern its deeper reason—it is given for a purpose, to accomplish some good beyond itself, even specific things with which we have been entrusted. It is not protected for its own sake or hoarded for fear of losing it. Instead, we nurture it so that we can use it to gain and grow other goods and benefits. We may even go so far as to see a relationship between the proportion of health we have received and the purposes we are meant to accomplish.”
― Bob Cutillo, Pursuing Health in an Anxious Age