If you are thinking about going to college or you are attending pay someone to take my statistics exam one right now, you know how expensive a college tuition can be. And the costs are going up 2% to 12% every year. Statistics show that three out of four students NEED to get a job to pay for college. They also show that this causes stress and that there is a relationship with the number of hours worked per week and lower grade point averages. Taking out a student loan is an option, but after graduation you’ll be working to pay off student loans.

But what if there was a way to pay for college without taking out a loan, or if you have already taken one out, to pay it off before you graduate! This is perfectly possible and the best thing is, you can do this without spending a single dollar. I bet I got your attention now! You’re probably thinking that it’s something like MLM, but it’s not. Let me show you how to pay off student loans faster than you thought possible!

First, let’s take a look at traditional student jobs. You start working for a boss and for every hour you work you get paid a certain amount of money. These aren’t the kind of jobs that are going to make you a lot of money, so to be able to get around financially you’ll have to put in a certain amount of time. You are exchanging your time for someone else’s money. And when you have a paper or an exam coming up there is a good chance you still have to go to work, because your boss won’t give you time off or because you need the money. This can be very stressful, as you may have found out by now.

But don’t worry, there is a much easier way to earn money and pay off student loans. What if I told you that you can make money from the comfort of your home or dorm. All you need is a computer with an internet connection. And once you get things going a lot of it is on autopilot, so when you have an exam coming up, you can afford to skip a week and you’d still be making money. And the best thing is, you can do this without investing any money, signing a contract…

What I’m talking about is called ‘affiliate marketing’. Tens and tens of thousands of companies are selling their products online and most of them work with affiliates. These affiliates send customers to the merchants website and get paid a commission (up to 75%) for every purchase they make. Even if the customer doesn’t buy on his first visit, but a couple of days or weeks later he changes his mind, the commission is still for you. Or when you sell contracts or memberships, you get paid every month for as long as this customer is a member!

When you were a kid sitting in class, what was the instruction you heard most? Well, maybe you didn’t hear it quite as often as I did, but during my elementary school years, I was told to pay attention many times a day. Although I had to be told more times than I can even remember, I did eventually learn the importance of paying attention.

Attention is important in all areas of life. It started in school when we needed to pay attention to learn the lesson of the day. Once we knew the lesson, we could complete assignments and take the quiz or exam. Eventually this would all accumulate and we’d get a grade for the class. If you didn’t pay attention, what kind of grade did you get?

When I see the state of health in America, I can’t help but wonder what would happen if everyone started paying attention. I’m not sure where we went wrong. I have a few theories and can walk through a few steps to show what has occurred, but that is a whole new article.

Without getting into the entire history of US health, I just want to discuss the power of attention. If nothing else changed, what would we gain by paying more attention to our health? That question has been stuck in my head for a while, so I had to share a few ideas of what I think we would gain from paying a little more attention.

Nutrition

The food we eat today is barely food. We eat more chemical preservatives than we do actual food these days. Everything we eat comes from a box, can or a bag handed to us from a drive-through window. This “food” is literally destroying us from the inside out. Look at the health statistics. Our children (born this decade) are the first generation to have a shorter life expectancy than we do. (5 years shorter!) With all the technology we have, it took us many years to add 5 years to our life expectancy. Now we are going the wrong direction.

Why are we continuing to eat foods that only do us harm? We eat this way because we stopped paying attention. We let food manufacturers and restaurants choose our foods now. We leave the decisions up to the big companies and assume that the government agencies would only allow safe and healthy options to be sent our way.

We are wrong. There is a wide range of food options ranging from the processed crap (technical term) to the fresh produce grown on a farm only miles from your home. Just because it is in your favorite store in a happy container doesn’t mean that a food item is good for you. Just because it is on sale, doesn’t mean that food can’t be bad for you.

Question: Do you have any idea what is in the food you eat?

You can choose to eat a vegetarian diet of only fruits and vegetables, an Atkins diet heavy on meats and dairy, or anything in between. But in order to know what you are eating, you have to pay attention. If not, you have no idea what you are putting into your body. If you are trying to lose weight or simply maintain a healthy weight, the math says that you need to take in less calories. Most people have no idea how many calories they take in on a typical day.

Question: Do you know how many calories you take in each day?

The fact is, you can start on a healthier path simply by taking a minute to think. Take a minute to think about what you are eating and you will be taking a big step. You don’t have to make a drastic change right away. You don’t have to try to eat completely different food starting tomorrow in order to be healthy. Just like every other goal we’ve discussed, it all starts with a baseline. Where are you now? Where do you want to go? In this case it’s more like: What are you eating? What do you want to be eating? If you don’t know what you are eating now…I can think of a great place to start.

Exercise

It is so simple, yet we could go on and on with the reasons we need to pay attention. It’s a shame, but exercise is something we have to watch now too. We used to be active by nature, but now we have to try and “fit it in” or “find time” to get the exercise we need. Guess what? We are not finding the time for the exercise we need. The average American is now only even active for a few minutes per day and is not exercising at all.

Why don’t we exercise? Again, I think it is because we stopped paying attention. We’ve talked about what happens when we don’t pay attention to our food. Well, it’s not any better when we stop paying attention to our exercise. In fact, I would think it was easier to be in tune with the exercise we need. After all, we know how we feel at all times (if we pay attention) so shouldn’t we know when we need something?

Shouldn’t we be able to feel that our energy level is not where it should be so it is time to take a quick walk? I wish it were that simple for everyone. Unfortunately, we don’t tune into that and we assume we just need more caffeine to get through the day.

Question: How many days per week do you feel good?

With exercise, just like with nutrition, the best advice is to pay attention. We are build to move. Our bodies have evolved over the years to function better with movement. Our current health issues are testament to the affects of the sedentary lifestyle. It’s a shame that we have come so far in some areas and gone the other direction in something so important.

Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe the average American doesn’t find feeling good important. Maybe the average American doesn’t want to live a long life. Maybe they want to die young and feel like crap every day. I don’t think that is true at all. I don’t believe for a second that anyone wants to deal with any of the
health issues that are now plaguing this country.

I think we all want to feel good and live healthy. We just don’t know what to do. I see commercials on TV, ads in the newspaper and links on the web promising weight loss and good health. This can’t be a coincidence. I also see that Americans spend billions of dollars on home fitness equipment every year. Not to mention what we spend on gym memberships and diet plans.

The numbers are incredible. But what is more incredible is the fact that we are still chasing our health. We spend all of this money yet we have not found the results. Why is this? I think it’s because we are trying to find the quick fix. We see something that looks like it will work (It promises to work much better than it does.) but we don’t stick with it.

Another Question: How many times have you tried the “next big fad” and been disappointed?

It all comes back to that first step. You won’t use a piece of equipment that you don’t like. You won’t go to a place that you are uncomfortable with. There are many components to a routine. If you want yours to work you have to have a plan that takes these into consideration. How do you know what you want to do or what you will stick with? Start by paying attention.

What does your body need? How do you feel when you do this or that? These questions are where we need to start. Without asking these questions we are just going to keep going along with whatever is in front of us. That is clearly not working. For the average American, the food that is in front of you and the exercise that “you have time for” are what is killing you. I know that no one lives forever, but the current trends show us that life is not only getting shorter, but it is getting more difficult. Just like when we didn’t pay attention in class. Those exams were difficult too.

Healthcare

I saw a billboard the other day that made me think about all of this. A healthcare provider in the area has a series of billboards that say: “Health should be simple.” On each of these billboards is a picture of someone eating an apple, lifting a weight or doing some other healthy activity. I like the message here. Health should be simple. Unfortunately it has become very complicated and difficult for people to manage.

This is one of the reasons that we are dealing with the healthcare crisis now. Yes, there many factors, but I think the biggest factor is the fact that are no longer paying attention to our own health. In fact, we don’t even look at it as our own anymore. Health is now something that your doctor worries about or what was passed on by your parents.

That is a good way to lose control of health. It has happened to many people and will continue to happen until we take ownership again. What do we need to do first? You guessed it. We need to pay attention. We need to pay attention to our health BEFORE the doctor tells us we need surgery or before we have been diagnosed with a chronic condition. We need to take control of our health.

Question: Do you know your blood pressure? Do you know your cholesterol numbers?

The advances we’ve made in the medical field are amazing. We are constantly finding new ways to do things and to make what was previously a death sentence into a manageable situation. This can be a double-edged sword though. The one drawback to this is that we no longer try to avoid the medical care. I appreciate this and I see great value in all of it. I’m not suggesting that we pear back medical technology to make healthcare cheaper. I’m just suggesting that we start managing our own health rather than waiting until we need to be saved.

What am I talking about? Well, I’ve heard many people say that they aren’t concerned about their health because they are young and don’t need to. I’ve heard, “Why do I need to worry about health now?” Well, you actually don’t have to worry about it if you pay attention. If you don’t, that is when you need to start worrying.

I’ve also heard, “My parents are overweight, so why should I even try to lose weight?” This is an excuse that has become very widespread. People think that everything is genetic. This is an easy way to avoid ownership. If you are not in control it’s not your fault. Well, you are in control and so are your parents.

If you are overweight, it is not because your parents passed on the “overweight gene”. You are overweight because of your habits. Your parents are also overweight because of their habits. Oddly enough, those habits seem to be similar. How did that happen? It looks like they passed those habits along.

Question: What habits are you passing along to your children?

Too often we are ending up in the doctor’s office with something we could have avoided. We have let medicine become something that only the doctor can deal with. We take the mentality explained above and say that our health is just happening to us and we all we can do is what the doctor tells us to do.

I find this especially hard to understand, considering the medical community has been telling us to exercise and eat right for years. I guess we don’t hear that. We do hear the doctor when we have to start taking another medication though. At least we can make the decision between taking that medication or changing the way we live so we don’t need it.

Again, medicine has come a long way. There are many great medications out there. For people who need them, they have worked wonders. For people that do not need them, they have helped them continue to live an unhealthy lifestyle without the consequences. At least the consequences haven’t shown up just yet.

Last Questions: How did your actions today affect your tomorrow? Is today going to have a positive or negative impact on tomorrow?

Maybe that’s the problem. We are aware of the consequences of our actions, but we are still unwilling to change our behavior. Maybe we just don’t see it because it’s so long term. Actually, this brings me right back to the same place: Paying attention.

If you pay attention to how you feel today, you can alter what you do in order to feel better tomorrow. If you keep doing this you will keep feeling better and enjoy life much more. If you choose not pay attention, you can easily end up in the cycle where you are not in control.

The best advice I can give: Don’t give up your control. If you have given it up, take it back. It only takes one step to get started. The best way to take control of your health: Pay attention.