My PT (Personal Trainer) recommended that I have Whey Protein drink occasionally. It’s basically a high protein derivative of milk, if I’m not mistaken. The idea is, when one is working out using weights, extra protein is needed to repair muscles. Since for many people it is hard (and probably unhealthy) to eat 1,000 gram steak 3 times a day, comes the convenient Whey Protein drink as supplement.

Now, my PT also reminds me that Whey Protein drink should not replace real meals. So I was still expected to get protein from chicken, beef, or fish. The drink is only a supplement, just to top-up my protein intake from regular meals. Coincidentally, this morning, as I prepared my drink after workout, I noticed the following sentence on the whey protein pack:

“Not To Be Used As A Sole Source Of Nutrition”

I guess since the product came from the US, it makes sense. I mean, the Americans are notorious for not using common sense on many things, and explicit instruction for products is always required (I once read there is real warning for iron that says: “Do Not Iron Clothes On Body”) What interests me however, is that the sentence contains a bigger truth about life.

Take wisdom and knowledge. There isn’t anything that should be used as ‘a sole source of wisdom’. We learn from our parents, but also from our teachers, our friends, heck, even from our pets.  The same with ideologies. As much as I believe in free market, there are lessons contained in other ideology (even the now-failed Communism has a good lesson – how do you look after the welfare of workers, and not just exploit them to the max).

We can extend the thought further. I don’t believe my own religion as ‘a sole source of truth’. I learn many noble ideas from different religions: Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and many others. Even we can learn so much from atheism and its criticism on religions.

But it is human nature to stick with the familiar, to see others who are different from us as ‘enemy’, that they are all evil, and there is none we can learn from them. This is a tragedy. Just like whey protein is not to be used as a sole source of nutrition, our own kind, our own ethnicity, our own country, our own culture, our own tribe, and countless other “our somethings” should not be used as the sole source of knowledge, of life, of happiness.

This is perhaps why I try to follow so many different kinds of people on Twitter. I follow those of other beliefs, of other ideologies, of other temperament, of other interest, of other hobbies, of other point of views. Although I am a joker on Twitter, I also follow the whiner, because I still learn something from people of different personality. Although I am not into politics, I follow those who talk politics, etc. etc.

There is something liberating, when we stop looking at anything as a sole source of anything. And life surely gets much more colourful. And interesting 🙂