Dear Doctor,

When you walk down the main street in your neighborhood, you probably see numerous other people, all on their way to wherever they’re going, and most of them do not include chiropractic care as part of their health and wellness routine. It’s unfair to make that entirely your responsibility, but you must admit, you know a lot more about why chiropractic care is important than they do.

If you look at the odds, it may seem insurmountable to you, but the truth is that your town is more ready for a message like ours than you might realize.  While it’s unrealistic to expect people to just drop their medical heritage, which is engrained in their consciousness as the way things are done, there is more participation in wellness habits now than at any time in recent memory. People are beginning to adopt healthy practices as part of their lifestyle decision-making, and that bodes well for those of us in the wellness professions.

There are those among us who are inspired leaders, able to manifest movement in groups of people as a matter of their usual course, and we depend on those leaders to generate momentum at the state, national and global levels. Though many of us will never have the opportunity to personally enter into those conversations, there’s plenty you can do to make a difference in your community.

I remember Guy Riekeman telling a story of a man out walking on the beach, who sees in the distance another man doing an odd dance by the shore – bending down, making scooping motions, gesturing toward the water, and then repeating his weird gyrations.

As he got closer, he saw that actually, the dancer was patrolling the shoreline, looking for starfish that had washed up on the sand. He would bend down to pick up a stranded starfish, toss it back into the water, and then continue on, looking for more starfish to rescue.

The man couldn’t believe his eyes. “Sir, don’t you realize that these starfish will just wash back up on the shore when the tide comes in?  Don’t you see that what you are doing doesn’t matter?”

The dancer paused briefly to look back at the man, and then he bent down to pick up a starfish and toss it back into the water.  “It matters to that one,” he said calmly, and resumed his labor of love.

When you go to your office each day, you are like that dancer, helping people you find, one at a time. Even if you can’t do everything, you can certainly do something, and that’s all that’s expected – for each of us to do something to move society in the direction of the chiropractic wellness lifestyle, intelligence using force to express itself through matter by organizing it against disintegrative, entropic forces, in the body and in a culture. You can lead those in your sphere of influence to a better way, if you care enough to learn how to do it effectively. There’s no need to bowl people over, just share your truth with them, and serve those within your reach, and you’ll be doing your part.

Every single time you tell the chiropractic story, you give someone a chance at a better life. If you think it’s futile to spread the word just one more time, think of the dancer on the beach, picking up starfish and tossing them back in the water, and realize that what you do matters to that one.

Dr. Dennis Perman,
for The Masters Circle

PS Please take the time to register for our all-new seminar, “Master the Game of Life” -- co-sponsored by Life University, August 14-16 in Washington, D.C., it features Guy Riekeman at his best and special guest Richard Flint -- call 800.451.4514, or go to www.themasterscircle.com. Thank you!