One of my all time favorite books is Ready Player One. I’m not sure if it’s because I grew up in the 80’s and spent my youth playing video games. First Pong, then Zork, Super Mario Brothers and GoldenEye and endless arcade games. Plus all the amazing classic movies, like WarGames, Ghostbusters, Real Genius, Better Off Dead, or Revenge of the Nerds and of course, anything by Monty Python.

Sometimes you just connect with a story and get completely immersed. That was me with Ready Player One.

In case you didn’t read it or missed the movie (don’t worry, no spoilers), the book was written by Ernest Cline and later made into a movie by Steven Spielberg (even so, it was not as good as the book). It’s set in the future when the world had become a dark and hopeless place. Life is so bad that the entire world population can only find refuge in a alternative virtual universe created by James Halliday, an eccentric billionaire video game programmer. Little did everyone know, but Halliday coded a a digital Easter egg hidden somewhere in the OASIS, sparking a contest when he died that gripped the entire world. The one who could find it would win Halliday’s immense fortune.

“These three words were always the last thing an OASIS user saw before leaving the real world and entering the virtual one: READY PLAYER ONE” ― Ernest Cline, Ready Player One

 

Your Healthcare is Not a Game

I love a good game, video or otherwise. I enjoy competing and the challenge and the victory. Some things though, are just not compatible with sport; surgery, handling toxic waste, pretty much anything that goes down at the proctology office.

In the virtual world of video games, if things go South you can just start over, playing each level again and again until you win. Not so with your health. One wrong turn and you might not ever recover.

Our health and well being is so vitally important, but unfortunately we too often take it for granted and we live however we want. Then years later we wonder why we’re overweight, sick and miserable. We settle for easy and quick, always looking for instant gratification, the next big rush. We can worry about the consequences later, right?

Well, the bad news is that later happens really fast!

 

“I felt like a kid standing in the world’s greatest video arcade without any quarters, unable to do anything but walk around and watch the other kids play.” ― Ernest Cline, Ready Player One

Go Against The Flow

I’m trying hard not to offer up any spoilers, but at one point in Ready Player One, Wade makes a decision to do something completely counterintuitive and that decision changes everything. He goes the opposite direction from everyone else.

If you want to be healthy these days, you have to go against the flow. You have to be counter cultural. When everyone else eats junk food, you have to go out of your way to eat healthy, even if it’s inconvenient and seems unreasonable. When everyone else is staying up late and partying, you have to stand up, walk away and get a good night sleep. When the rest of the world is looking to medicate their problems away, you find natural, healthy alternatives. Drinking, smoking and persistent lethargy; most people let themselves go. You can’t, at least if you truly want to get healthy. You are going to have to be a live a little insane, at least by comparison.

 

“I didn’t think anyone would anticipate this move, because it was so clearly insane.”
― Ernest Cline, Ready Player One

Finding the Healthcare Easter Egg

The more I think about it, finding a great healthcare provider these days can be every bit as challenging as finding Halladay’s Easter egg, but it shouldn’t be. In Ready Player One, people dedicated their whole lives to finding the Easter egg and after years most had given up. It was a challenge with an unbelievable reward for whomever beat the game, but it seemed impossible.

Finding an excellent healthcare provider is incredibly important for your well being, but tough to do. Maybe not as hard as finding a digital Easter egg hidden in a vast virtual universe, but still, pretty hard! High cost, lack of insurance, insufficient insurance, high co-pays, confusing billing, confusing terminology, lack of available of services, not accepting new patients, inconvenience or doctors with unfortunate bed-side manners. There are many barriers to securing a truly great healthcare provider.

But there is hope!

“That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real.” ― Ernest Cline, Ready Player One

Ready Patient One

Are you ready to put your healthcare first? Are you ready for a physician that makes you Patient One? There are providers out there that make your health and well being the top priority. At Innova Primary Care, we does just that.