Just a few weeks ago, a young man who had won recognition as Ghana’s Strongest Man in 2023 was laid to rest. The contradiction here is unsettling: someone celebrated for physical strength could still be vulnerable to an illness that required timely medical attention.
According to accounts shared by his wife, he had complained of mild body pains and was given painkillers. When the discomfort persisted, they also tried malaria medication, hoping the symptoms would improve. But while they slept, his fever worsened. By the time they sought hospital care the following morning, it was too late. His death was devastating, and it left me thinking about how easily we can mistake strength for invulnerability.
Honestly, I cannot know exactly what caused his death or what might have happened under different circumstances. But the broader lesson is difficult to ignore: being young, fit or physically strong does not remove the need to listen to your body and seek appropriate medical care.
There is this tendency in most people to normalise the body’s signals. A headache becomes something to sleep off. Persistent fatigue becomes evidence that we are working hard. Back pain becomes normal because the job requires sitting all day. Poor sleep becomes the price of ambition. We negotiate with our bodies as though every warning is merely an inconvenience standing between us and our plans.
But the body keeps a different kind of record. It does not understand our deadlines, aspirations or social expectations. It responds to what we repeatedly give it. Neglect may not produce immediate consequences, and that is what makes it dangerous. Also, the absence of symptoms is not necessarily evidence that everything is perfect; sometimes it simply means the consequences have not become obvious yet.
So no matter the circumstances you find yourself in, you have a responsibility to steward what you have. That means learning to distinguish between enduring ordinary discomfort and repeatedly ignoring something that deserves attention. It means taking persistent or concerning symptoms seriously instead of automatically reaching for medication without understanding what is happening.
It means getting appropriate medical advice, using prescribed medicines correctly, taking preventive care seriously, eating with greater awareness, moving the body, protecting sleep and paying attention to mental and emotional wellbeing. It also means knowing that no article, friend, social-media post or home remedy can replace professional medical assessment when something is genuinely wrong.
This is especially important for young people because we are often building the very habits that will accompany us into later life. The body we have today is not separate from the person we will become ten, twenty or thirty years from now. How we sleep, eat, move, manage stress, use substances, respond to illness and seek care can shape our future capacity. We cannot always control what happens to our health, but we can influence how responsibly we respond to the body we have been given.
True wealth, then, is not merely having the money to afford treatment when something goes wrong. It is also having the wisdom to protect what money cannot restore. A bank account cannot breathe on your behalf. Accomplishment cannot substitute for the capacity to wake up healthy, think clearly, love deeply, move freely and participate in your own life.
Don’t wait for a frightening diagnosis before you learn to value your health. Your body is carrying you through every ambition you have, every person you love, every responsibility you fulfil and every dream you hope to realise. It deserves more than occasional attention when something breaks.
Perhaps the wisest thing you can do with your youth is not to spend it proving that you can survive anything. It is to use it to build habits that allow you to remain well enough to enjoy what you are working so hard to build.
Your body is not a machine built to absorb endless neglect. Treat your health as wealth before you are forced to understand its value.
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