Originally posted on Facebook HERE
We leave tomorrow to come home. Maui is just a really special place for us. Really the only place we’ve routinely come back to, even though we’ve traveled all over the world now. Funny, because before 2011, neither of us had ever been out of the country at all except Canada and Mexico. Grateful we’ve had the opportunity to go so many different places. And today I’m thinking about aging, I guess. And how we seem to try to hold onto our youth as much as possible, and in many different ways. For the first time in my life, when I look in the mirror, or see myself in pictures, I’m starting to see an “older” man. Inside, I still feel young, energetic, and healthy. But I’m worried about the packaging that contains me. I’m not sure I’ve been a very good owner. I could take better care of myself. Because staying physically healthy is important to me. But the last few months I’m not sure I’ve really been living that way. I don’t get enough sleep, I don’t always eat right, I often eat too much food too late at night, I tend to let workouts slide when business gets busy, or we get caught up in our personal lives… and you get run down and burnt out doing that. Which is one reason I felt this vacation, and many others in the past, came at a great time. I needed to back off from all my responsibilities for a while to get perspective. And get sick, I guess. I don’t get sick very often, but I got sick this week while we were on vacation. Wednesday wasn’t a great day for me. Thankfully, it was basically just a 24/48 hour thing, but – getting sick is always a sign to me that I need to look at everything I’m doing and get my focus back to where it should be. And it’s so easy to let health slide. This week will give me the focus I need to rededicate myself to staying healthy going forward. I’m quite fine watching myself age, but I’m not good with watching myself age in an unhealthy fashion. And, just like the ocean – we have tides in life. Or at least I do. I get focused and motivated and probably obsessed with being fit, then let it slide, then get disgusted, then get focused again – I’ve run that cycle through countless times. And one other thing I’ve been noticing more lately is how much time and effort people are putting into changing their physical appearance using surgery or outside substances. I just – I guess that’s just not my thing at all. It’s something I usually notice most in actors and actresses, I guess – public figures. “How much work do you think he’s had done?”, ya know? Or the actress who blows up her lips, which seems common now. Surgically trying to maintain our youth, just not for me at all. Age will catch us all. There’s a lifetime of wisdom in those wrinkles. To me, aging naturally and gracefully is more beautiful than trying to keep and old package young with any type of enhancements. And maybe seeing yourself the way you are is meant to be, too. The packaging is the packaging, it isn’t who we are. But who we are, and how much time we have while we’re here can certainly be affected by how we care for ourselves. And health always seems to be the first thing we drop when life gets busy. Once that body is no longer in motion, it’s way harder to get going again, too. Healthy routines and habits are important to me. We don’t have to let our thoughts age, there we have some control, but we get one body to work with. Let’s remember the importance of staying fit today, I know it’s certainly on my mind, and live our best lives as long as we can.
