It is often said that time is wasted on the young. When you are young and hear such idoims, you may tend to think the adults who speak them are idiots. Repeating mantras of days gone by that sound like drudgry to match their wrinkles, gray hairs, gimp-walks and frowns. However, the older you yourself get, even with the darkest of sayings, you may find some truth in them–whether you wanted to or not.
My grandmother used to tell us to count our blessings all the time. When I mean all the time, I mean all-the-time! As a happy-go-lucky child, I had to roll my eyes. I didn’t care to hear it and when I did have troubles, I found out quite trite in light of my harsh realities. Fast forward, decades later to ripe old age 54. Several therapists in, medications, workshops and ministries. And what am I finding recently? One of the most powerful things I must do to start my day off is count at least 3 things I’m grateful for so my mind stays on track. Go figure. Grandma was right. On a number of accounts, grandma was right.
Here is another one of those trite sayings out there but with a story about it that is relevant for today. “Enjoy life now because you can’t your possessions with you.” I was in the gym sauna and as soon as I entered I heard the booming voice of this man carrying on about his health condition. Most men in this gym, if they talk in the sauna, talk at a church like level, so it was noteworthy how loud he was. I quickly pieced together through his chat with another young man that he had recently just returned to the gym after having a heart attack. He had given up on exercise but decided to come back because his belly was becoming an issue to his golf swing and his back. This was evident by the brace he was wearing around his waist.
When the younger man conversing with him left, I picked up on conversing with the man because I could tell he needed to talk and no one comes into a sauna to hear a man’s health problem. What I learned was that he was professional golfer. “I never though I would be here,” he said, “and no matter what they tell you statins are a killer. Don’t get on statins!” he warned me shaking his head. “I was a pro athelete,” he went on, “Well, ssome don’t see a professional golfer as an athelete but still… Now I’m lucky if I can hit 285. Most people would think that is good but I know that isn’t what I can do. I can do better. And it isn’t going to cut it in competition.”
His belly was indeed extended and he was an older gentleman, not a young sprite. I could imagine that this could be any of us. As he went on to warn me about this medication and that, I thanked him because, as I assured him, as I get older, one day I could be in his shoes. We don’t imagine it, but we could even at a young age have these things happen to us–a car accident, a stroke, a heart attack. You name it and suddenly we can become something less than a Instagram trend. Our “professional” status can move to “disabled”. Functional to dysfunctional. The question around this is should that involve shame?
In this comparison, look at me culture, it’s a race for more clicks, followers, likes and the rest. A race to survive and thrive, and it hasn’t become easier. It has become marginally more difficult while we have been distracted with thee media circus shows. Compaison to others is natural but also a thief to contentment. We can use comparison to measure what we may want for ourselves but when it brings frustration, sadness and more specifically shame than we are in the wrong mindframe.
The professional golfer in the sauna was comparing his now self to his prior self before the heart attack and beating himself over the difference. As we age and find these physical hardships arise, we want to take our youth with us. But, alas, we can’t. Some aspects of it we can on the inside and by keeping ourselves healthy we can prevent unhealthy episodes for a time, but by and large, just like anything else we can’t take it with us. We have to accept and love who we are on the inside which is just a manifestation of who we are on the outside. The outside is a costume that wears away. There is no permanancy to it and we fool ourselves to think otherwise. To love ourselves completely in no matter what state of being we are in is not only challenging in a culture that pays for us to hate ourselves so we will buy their products to make us feel better, but it is critical we take that journey to that counter culture path. The journey of self love is the most important one of all.
Jamison's Writing Jams 