Death by a thousand paper cuts

As it was written by Cat Stevens* (and performed best in my humble opinion by Rod Stewart), the first cut is the deepest and when it's deep enough we often notice it right away. Any deep laceration requires immediate first aid, you need to control the bleed rapidly, as it's the acuteness of it all that presents the medical emergency - and if it isn't acted upon quickly enough, it soon becomes catastrophic.

But it's the small, seemingly innocuous repetition of smaller cuts over and over again that habituate the body to some form of learned helplessness. This is the subtle form of the body yelling into a void - but unlike the first scenario, it often happens silently and slowly until there's a bleed out. Then it's too late.

Where is this headed?

Stay with me, I know I can wander.

People are perceptive and our systems are well designed to screen for catastrophic situations - emergency medicine being a prime example of eliteness under pressure. If you've ever been on either side of a medical emergency you realise in many ways just how incredible our healthcare system can be. In fact, I'd argue Australia is one of the greatest countries in the world when it comes to managing this kind of situation.

We might not be as good at prevention though...

Death by a thousand cuts often starts with being knowledgeable enough to know that the scissors and other sharp devices shouldn't make contact with the skin in the first place. Or if it happens from time to time, there's intervals to control for the small bleeds and we end up okay. Better yet, we recognise that despite that small little cut, it still didn't feel good and it's best avoided.

The same thing happens when we accidentally place our hand on a hot stove, this burn is just another form of paper cut - although a different painful experience can lead to yet another endowment of wisdom. Don't put your hand on a hot stove, it burns and we realise if done too often it leads to another form of bleeding out.

All of these accrued lower resolution wounds build a knowledge for us to minimise them given they can harm over time. The body keeps the score.

Remember when Mike Tyson said everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face? Iron Mike's expression was referring to the concept that when something in life hits you very hard (like a very deep cut) your plans may just go out the window because you have to address that problem right now.

You can probably see where I'm going...

The nation has a tendency to minimise the money of Australian taxpayers to inject into preventative methods in healthcare. Last I checked it was pretty abysmal and approximated less than 2% of our budgetary spending.

There isn't much education or awareness around paying attention to the paper cuts and so we often wait until the blood is visibly red, voluminous and pulsing before we act on it.

If our funding allocation is a reflection of our nation's focus, then it seems clear enough that we require more efforts around education and knowledge on the seemingly small things. I say seemingly because we know just how important these small things are to prevent an eventual bleed out.

It was Carl Jung that said 'Modern man can't see God because he doesn't look low enough.'

Take the religiosity of that how you will, but the lesson Jung paints is that we shouldn't avoid the smallest details that are seemingly innocuous - we might just find wisdom in that.

What can we focus on?

Very young children learn a new language most easily and readily when they're exposed to it as soon as possible. Their parents often understand innately that if they're exposed to multiple languages spoken and reiterated in the household that the child's sponge-like and developing brain will take it all in - and it often does so quite comfortably.

With education, we need a system of early onset implementation to create greater awareness of the seemingly small paper cuts. Knowledge and exposure to harmful things leads to a real-life learning of how to best confront those situations as we get older.

Education on what foods to eat, how to move the body and remain physically active, the importance of reading and writing, listening to music, taking a moment to breathe fully and properly, going outdoors and spending time in nature.

The knowledge of the importance of your own health as the predominantly vital commodity, the value of your family, friends and others you surround yourself with, regular expressions of gratitude, how to manage your money and understanding the basics of taxes and savings and finding a purpose in your life.

Finally, having the wisdom to know when these things above require attention and focus so when the small bleeds come on, we're prepared to deal with them properly in the equal measure of hope and rationale that the larger bleeds will become less likely. We might even save our own lives and others we care about - but this idea and implementation takes a village.

• Shout out to Ryan Heath who set me straight on the opening sentence, turns out intellectual property is a thing.

What are you focusing on? How do you perceive the paper cuts? And, do these expressions fit with something you've experienced or thought through? As always I'm happy to hear your thoughts, comments and criticisms.