The number of hours in my day

Looking back on the reflections I’ve recently shared here since turning age 70 reveals a consistent content emphasizing my old man age and the dwindling time I have left to live.  I suppose this is natural for older folks.  My yesteryear mantra that gave birth to my blogging journey of “Every man who looks in a mirror sees a 16-year-old kid” is a ship that has sailed. 

 

But I wouldn’t say I’m obsessed with this eventuality, only that I ponder it a bit more than in the past.  There are pearls of wisdom doing so, and I hope that doing this pondering yields me a bucket of them. 

 

I now also keep a page of sayings that I’ve accumulated having this older man awareness.  I jot them down when coming across them, ones that I read about created by others, and ones that I create, calling them my own.  My sayings page consists of short old man wisdom utterances that I refer to from time to time; they also give me new blogging content ideas.  I look forward to adding to my sayings collection as time goes on. 

 

This will keep me honest with easy access reminders that I’ve lived more life than the life I have left to live. 

 

This awareness resonates best with me when numbers are involved because I’m a numbers guy. Like my recent saying, one I recently created that “the number of years remaining in my life is likely a smaller number than the number of hours in my day.” 

 

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum 

How young we were

 

A recent conversation with Mrs. Pierini Fitness took both of us down a long-ago memory lane, the time we met.  We both spent time sharing our recollection of that “historical event” along with our thoughts and feelings about it.  It was a conscious effort by both of us, spending quality time dwelling, reflecting and sharing, not rushing through the process, and learning if new thoughts and feelings would arise from the original ones, we faintly recall having almost 50 years ago.  I guess the time spent doing this lasted almost 45 minutes. 

 

Thoughts are easy to recollect for Pierini Fitness, but feelings are slower to recognize and acknowledge; you know, it’s a guy thing.  Mrs. Pierini Fitness, on the other hand, has no problem with either, so this dialogue had an ebb and flow of reflective duh-pauses from me and triggered fast contributions from her.  Regardless, it was a healthy experience, one that I enjoyed, and one that I look forward to doing again but next time for a different historical moment. 

 

The takeaway mood during our discussion can be expressed in these lyrics of a song sung by Mary Hopkin in 1968, eight years before we met: 

 

“Those were the days, my friend 
We thought they'd never end 
We'd sing and dance forever and a day 
We'd live the life we choose 
We'd fight and never lose 
Those were the days, oh yes, those were the days.” 
 

Additionally, the final takeaway was best summarized by Mrs. Pierini Fitness, who commented that we didn’t know how young we were. 

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum 

Disguise itself as aging

One of my YouTube fitness brothers recently shared a profound statement causing me to take a pause and reflect on it.  He said, “I’ll never make age an excuse, but it definitely has an effect.” He made this statement in the context of a workout he just completed where he didn’t feel as strong as he would have liked.

 

Haven’t we all had days like this?  For sure if we’re among the coveted group of gracefully aging fitness fellows who are still in the game.  I have my fair share; it goes with the turf of being above ground and still making decent attempts to show up and subject ourselves to our fitness training grind. 

 

Another YouTube fitness brother, a younger one, said it best, “If it’s easy, everyone would do it.” Pick your favorite challenging fitness exercise to test the truth of this prophetic statement.  Burpees, for sure!  A double kettlebell complex of, say, five exercises performed for five reps each for five rounds, absolutely!  Hill sprints or slam ball slams, certainly!  The list goes on for those of us who thrive on challenging ourselves. 

 

But we don’t have to do it.  We could resign our fitness training to taking a comfortably paced 30-minute walk or swing some light pink dumbbells up and down following some “great” workout a “fitness influencer” said we should do. 

 

Pierini Fitness isn’t ready yet to sign up for this half-baked fitness training pace but maybe one day I’ll have no choice but to do so.  When will that be?  When I’m age 75, or when I’m age 80?  Or maybe sooner than I expected.  One never knows and we should always be prepared for this eventuality. 

 

But until that day comes, I’ll continue with my pedal to the metal training, challenging myself in ways that make me grunt and gasp for air, and not letting my proclivity towards laziness disguise itself as aging. 

 

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum