We will all do it together

Pierini Fitness is blessed to have Mr. Jim Fritzsche as today’s middle-age man guest blogger. Jim is a 53-year young fitness dude friend of the chief executive blogger, and a self-employed CPA in the real world. Jim keeps fit with triathlon training. He lives in the Sacramento suburb of Elk Grove with his wife, two sons and a pet frog. What follows is Jim's guest middle-age man blogflection.

I was browsing the cable TV lineup recently and came across the Moody Blues live in concert. No sooner did I tune in than Justin Hayward and John Lodge ripped into the opening chords of “Ride My See-Saw”. That song brought back some memories and provided some thoughts for this blogflection.

Growing up, my six brothers and sisters and I had lots of cool toys, but none more popular than the see-saw that sat on the edge of the yard by the basketball court. My Dad had fashioned it out of a long plank (naturally) and some galvanized pipe fittings. I still remember the neighbor kids coming by and loading it up - we could fit 10-12 kids on it at one time. Up and down we went, over and over, day after day. We even would have contests shooting baskets while balancing on the middle of the tippy plank.

When “Ride My See-Saw” came out in the late sixties I was about twelve and thought the Moody’s must be writing about the contraption in my backyard. When I heard the song years later I understood that they were really singing about the ups and downs of life. The Moody Blues have ups and downs? With all their success, fame and fortune, how could that be? But it must be true for I hear them singing and inviting me to “run, run my last race, take my place, it’s for free”.

There are times these days I feel like leaving that race and its load of responsibility behind. Wouldn’t it just be easier if I didn’t have a family to support, clients to attend to, friends to keep in touch with. Maybe I could just curl up with some nice books on a far mountain top somewhere - leaving the cares of the world behind. Some people fantasize about winning the lottery - I fantasize about leaving it all behind. I’m afraid both are equally improbable of happening.

After I go through this occasional exercise, I see clearly that there is no escaping the ups and downs in this brief life of ours. Whether on a mountain top or in a fertile valley, we will continue to experience sadness and joy, failure and success, sickness and health. The rich and famous have their ups and downs, just as do the poor and all the rest of humanity. It’s part of our human condition.

I suppose then we shouldn’t fight our two-faced life, but embrace it. Instead of inviting others to “take my place” on the see-saw, perhaps we should be like those neighbor kids of my youth and invite them on board to ride along with us. We will all have our ups and we will all have our downs, but we will all do it together.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum