Originally posted on Facebook HERE
Everything changes as we age, both physically and mentally. Physical changes can be seen over time, at some point we were all babies, and toddlers, and teenagers, etc… but it can be felt as well. For men, hair stops growing in one place, and starts growing in others. Old injuries sometimes start to come back to visit as well – I’ve broken both of my pinky toes several times, I’m noticing that a bit more these days. I’m pretty sure I broke something in my left ankle years ago – I was drunk, carrying a piano down some stairs after a gig in 1979, and I never had it looked at. There’s a bone that kinda sticks out there. That one seems to be saying, “hey, remember me?” a bit more often these days. Things don’t heal as fast, either. And, any little bump or anything? Yeah – that’s gonna leave a mark, for sure. Every day we have a new body, it’s never the exact same body we had the day before. And, eventually we die. I have to deal with death a lot in my business – but also lately, because of my age – friends are starting to die. I just lost another one this week. And being around death brings more and more thoughts about our own mortality, doesn’t it? No matter what age we are, tomorrow isn’t guaranteed – but the older we get, the more the numbers say we have less life going forward than the life we’ve already lived. Our thoughts change as we age. How do we deal with that? Every day is one day closer to death. Our time is so very limited anyway. Are we keeping ourselves fit, then? Not just physically, but mentally? They do work together. It’s really hard to get physically fit with a poor mental attitude. And it’s hard to love your life and be happy if you feel like crap physically as well. But, as humans, we fall into routines. Often they aren’t routines that serve us at all. We work jobs we hate just for the money. We eat like shit. We don’t excercise. We don’t read, or meditate. Instead, we watch shows or play video games, and induce horrible images into our brains – death, aggression, anger, hatred… revenge. What we put in is what we’ll give out. You can’t fill yourself with anger, then meet everyone with love. You can’t eat 5000 calories a day and never exercise and expect to look your best. We need to work on ourselves to have our best lives. Maybe that isn’t important to you, but to that I’ll say this – why? Why wouldn’t that be important to you? Because you hate your life and you want to die? There are altogether way too many people who feel this way. And what we need to do – I’m including myself here, BTW – is periodically step back and look at everything. And ask… is this the best I have? Am I living MY life to the fullest extent of my capabilities? Or am I just meandering through, wallowing in the quagmire of mediocrity, because it’s where my routines have taken me? Life has a way of doing this to us. For me, work has a way of taking over. And lately, it’s affecting other areas of my life. Areas that I can no longer keep ignoring – because without mental and physical health I’m not really at my best at work, am I? I’m very lucky that I’m in a position that I can take myself out and away from everything for a while to reset. People say – how on earth can you do that? Just go off for three weeks on your own, leave you house, your wife, your business behind? Seems irresponsible!.. Yeah… it’s not. The last two times I did it, it was one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself. I love what I do for work, but that is not my identity. I have a strong and focused mind that likes to take over and control things – also not my identity. My identity is that small voice in the back of my head saying, “David – have you thought about God today?… have you sought to be in contact with your source? Are you in touch with the thoughts behind your thoughts? How does your soul feel?”… well, my soul feels neglected today. I did that. I allowed it to happen. I’ve done it before. I’ll probably do it again, too – because, well – life, ya know? It can pull us away from what’s important. And, to me what’s important is doing the best I can, always. Physically and mentally. The person I’ll be tomorrow is not the person writing this today. Will I be climbing or sliding?… ah – that’s the question we need to ask ourselves, and answer with brutal honesty. I wish you the best on your journey. I hope that if our paths ever cross, and I can be of assistance in any way, that I’m able to do that. Helping others is hard to do if we don’t take care of ourselves first, though.
