Month: April 2018

The lyrics to “I Can’t Drive 55” are running through my head.  Today, I turn 55 years old, and I feel pretty good about driving 55.

I feel pretty darn good for my age—as if I should feel otherwise.  I hope that I will surprise some who might learn of my age today.  Certainly, I hope that no one would guess me to be older.  Truth be told, I don’t know what 55 should feel like.  Tell me to “act your age”, and I wouldn’t know how to act.  After all, I have never been 55 before!

Age is but a number.  It is the passing of calendar years.  The days, weeks, and months do seem to pass more quickly the older I get, but otherwise.  I don’t feel all that different from year to year.

The question I have every April 30^th is “am I better today than I was last April 30^th?”  I hope I am.

Spiritually.  My faith has changed over the years.  I prefer to think of it as having grown.  The Universe has grown around me, and I see myself as less and less central to my Universe.  I struggle to live “I am third”, but the struggle is, itself, evidence that I am growing Spiritually.  Perhaps in the next 55 years I will finally get it right.

Physically.  I have aches and pains, but they are the same aches and pains I have had for decades.  (Maybe, if I would stretch more….)  Over all, I feel I am progressing (albeit at a slower rate than in my youth) rather than declining with age.  I am no Jack LaLanne, by any means, but I maintain a reasonable level of fitness.  Despite my love of food and beer, I am not obese or over-fat.  I don’t quite squat ATG, but I go deep, and I am going increasingly heavier.  I am not marathon-trained (nor do I wish to be), but I don’t get winded climbing the three floors to my classrooms and lab (like many of my students do).  No major health issues.  The hairs are increasingly gray (but those are the ones that have chosen to remain in my scalp).  Physically, I feel great.

Intellectually.  My ignorance continues to shrink.  Time has given me the opportunity to learn and to grow intellectually.  In my youth, I was much smarter.  Today, though, I know so much more.

Emotionally.  If I seem at all like an old man, it is emotionally.  True, I can be a crotchety, grouchy old man, but it is only because I grow increasingly frustrated with the shortcomings of men—and my own shortcomings.  Over all, though, I have learned that the fruit of God’s Holy Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control—are to be cultivated.  I am no longer hopelessly waiting for them to be divinely bestowed upon me.

Socially.  My true friends have remained over all these years.  That is the greatest birthday present one can ever receive.  I have a phenomenal wife and two incredible children.  I don’t need to be liked by others.  I am accepted by those who matter most.

Fifty-five is another mile-marker on a great journey.

Be your best today; be better tomorrow.

Carpe momento!

Below are the secrets to incredible fitness that celebrities and professional trainers are keeping to themselves….

(There are no secrets, just a lot of hard work.)

“Momentary muscular failure.”  This was a term I learned back in the 1970s training at Steel City Nautilus in Pittsburgh.  A key principle of Nautilus training was to push to the point where an additional repetition of the exercise was not possible without rest.  Sometimes (often) that point of failure was pushed a bit further by a trainer or lifting partner demanding “one more”.

Growth in life—be it Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, or Social—demands “momentary failure”.  Growth demands that we push beyond our current limits (the overload principle).  Like at Steel City Nautilus, I sometimes need the extra push to find my point of failure.  Otherwise, I am likely to quit before I reach the appropriate stimulus for growth.

Another aspect of “fitness” is knowing your weaknesses.  In exercise physiology, we test the fitness of the body system (e.g., maximal oxygen consumption or VO₂max) to determine our plan for progression.  We need to know our limits to set the level of stimulus for adaptation.  Less than a “minimal effective” stimulus for growth, and there is no change.  Of course, there is also a “maximal recoverable” stimulus, as well.  There is such a thing as too much failure, and we do need to see periodic successes to remain motivated.

The key to the principle of failure in life is to use failure to discover weaknesses and to change accordingly.  Otherwise, we cannot properly progress—grow.

It is by failing that we succeed.  Avoiding failure (or shielding one from failure) denies one the opportunity to self-evaluate and identify weaknesses.  If we don’t know our limitations, we cannot grow.

Push the limits.  Allow the Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Social dimensions to know their weaknesses, and grow!

Be your best today; be better tomorrow.

Carpe momento!

Workouts going nowhere?  Maybe it is you.

The possible workouts are endless.  Of course, some are better than others, but, unless they are unsafe or completely out of alignment with one’s goals, anything can have benefits—if the effort is put into it.  Sadly, many just don’t put in the effort.

Lifting weights and not getting stronger?  Keep at it.  Progress will come.  (Remember the overload principle, and, of course, rest and nutrition have a part.)

Diet not working?  Adjust.  If you aren’t losing fat weight, you are still eating too much—or too little.  If you aren’t gaining muscle weight, keep at it.  Progress will come.

If you aren’t seeing the results you want, persist.  Don’t make the mistake of jumping from program or diet to the next.  Give them time.  Most any sensible program or diet will be effective if it is executed.  Persist.

Find the program and diet you like and are willing to do and do it.

Be your best today; be better tomorrow.

Carpe momento!

I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.

I write a bit about failure.  I expect my kids to fail—indeed, I expect them to fail.  I expect to fail myself, and I expect others to fail.  Failure is a necessary part of growth.

I was recently encouraged by a friend to explore the growth potential in being wrong.  It is not that we should seek to be wrong.  Rather, we need to accept and admit when we are wrong as factor in growth.

Denial just ain’t a river in Egypt.  Denial of our error stagnates growth.  It robs us the opportunity to grow.

As a university professor, one of the most important things I can teach my students is to challenge what I (and others teach).  I admit that I don’t know everything.  I can’t know everything.  (One of my only permissible uses of the word “can’t”.)  And what I do know is subject to change—and has changed over time—because I, too, am learning.  If I am not learning (i.e., not accepting my errors), I am not growing.

We seem to be living in a society that is ever retreating to its safe, dogmatic, worldviews.  We hold on to our beliefs without question.  We deny any evidence contrary to our established views.

We preach tolerance as a good thing.  Tolerance is a good thing with regards to respecting others’ views and level of understanding, but tolerance can also be an excuse to remain unchanging.  Tolerance allows one to avoid questioning his or her worldview.  Merriam-Webster defines tolerance as “to allow to be or to be done without prohibition, hindrance, or contradiction”.  The implication is that “I don’t agree, but I will let others be”.  It denies the exploration of whether we are even correct in our current thinking.  It closes the door to discourse.  Worse than tolerance, though, is intolerance.

The concept of well-centered fitness emphasizes the need to balance one’s self spiritually, physically, intellectually, emotionally, and socially.  It is more than just simply balance.  One can easily balance their current Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Social dimensions with minimal effort.  I approach the wellness dimensions from a “fitness” perspective because this implies progression and adaptation to challenges to one’s “homeostasis”.  In other words, it suggests growth and constant improvement—kaizen.  The prospect for growth suggests that improvement is warranted (i.e., we might be “wrong”).

If I suggest that one should “be your best today; be better tomorrow”, this implies that today is “good”, but not “good enough”.  Accept being wrong as a part of the growth process.  If you recognize where you are wrong you are on the path of growth.  Keep moving forward!

Carpe momento!

“There is inestimable blessing in a cheerful spirit. When the soul throws its windows wide open, letting in the sunshine, and presenting to all who see it the evidence of its gladness, it is not only happy, but it has an unspeakable power of doing good.”—Orison Swett Marden

I struggle with this, but, when life gets tough, the best thing one can do is good.  Just do good.  Sure, we can allow ourselves to get frustrated and upset with others, but at what cost.  We just feel worse.  So, do good.

Mattie Stepanek wrote that “while we are living in the present, we must celebrate life every day, knowing that we are becoming history with every work, every action, every deed.”  Can we do this?  Of course, we can.  It is but a choice we make.

Choose to do good.

Carpe momento!

I always feel like I am in a rush.  I need to show down from time to time—to get into that place where I can hear myself think.

Have you ever given thought to that phrase—“hear myself think”?  We frequently need to quiet our external environment and our own voices to hear ourselves—to listen to our intuition.  We need quite to be reflective and contemplative.

I haven’t tried floatation therapy, but I suspect it would be beneficial—on occasion.  My life is limited by “opportunity costs” (as well as a budget), so I make due with whatever break I can take in the day to close my eyes and let my mind go.  I have an hour-plus commute to and from work, so I have the opportunity to turn off the radio and be somewhat contemplative (provided the other drivers don’t get on my nerves).

We live in a highly technological and noisy time.  Cell phones are always on, and we have alerts to let us know when we get an email or a test.  We reach for our electronics every time we get a break.  We prefer to have the television or music on for “background noise”.  We drown the silence.  As a result, we often fail to hear the still quiet voice in the silence.

I personally need to shut everything off on a more regular basis.  Even if for only 15 minutes a day.  I need to take some time to “hear myself think”.  I think I have a lot that I have been trying to say to myself.

Be your best today; be better tomorrow.

Carpe momento!

Take my Exercise Motivation & Adherence course, and you will quickly learn that, if I ask a question to which you don’t know the answer, a safe guess is “self-efficacy”.  Self-efficacy is defined by psychologist Albert Bandura as “one’s belief in one’s ability to succeed in specific situations or accomplish a task.”  While it is task-specific, we either believe we can or we believe we can’t—with a continuum of doubt in between.

Self-efficacy is a choice we make.  Granted, it is affect by the opinions of others and past experience, but, ultimately, it is a conscious decision of whether “I can” or “I can’t”.  ‘Can’t’ never did anything, so we might as well choose to believe that we can.

Be your best today; be better tomorrow.

Carpe momento!

Image source: Sandlot

Pets have been on my mind lately.  A friend has shared, on social media, a number of horrendous stories of heinous abuse of dogs.  My cousin, Barb, lost her pet cat of 18 years—on her birthday.  Dogs and (though they don’t want us to know it) cats seem to be the species of animals most capable of unconditional love.  Humans are certainly incapable except to perhaps a very small few others.  Thus, it is unfathomable how humans can so easily neglect and abuse these creatures.

We can learn much from our pets.  My household has a 3-year-old yellow lab, a black cat that is around 12 years, a beta fish, and a gerbil.  We lost a 16-year-old yellow lab last year.  I am not a cat person, but—secretly—ours has gotten through to me.  Sure, he screams to me for his food at 4:30 am and ignores me most of the rest of the day, but deep down I know he cares.

Having pets make us more caring people (with the exception of those who have no capacity to love, in which case they reveal our inhumanity and, perhaps, sociopathic natures).  I know for fact that I am a more patient person after 18-years of dog ownership (though still a work in progress—developing patience with humans is hard).

We have a lab who barks only when people come to the door or other dogs are walking by.  She refuses to stop when commanded.  It is as if he is saying “I am here to protect you.  Let me protect you.  I got this.”  Otherwise, she is as gentle as can be.

We need to be more like our pets—ferociously protective of others, forgiving to a fault, and always there to offer comfort.  How did the idiom “going to the dogs” become a negative?  When someone says “this country is going to the dogs”, why couldn’t this mean we are learning to love and to forgive?

Be your best today; be better tomorrow.

Carpe momento!

Last night, I was taken back to my teen years.  My family, along with another, went to a laser light show featuring Pink Floyd’s The Wall.  The show was great, and it brought back fond memories of friends and Buhl Planetarium in Pittsburgh, but the starkness of the music struck me—perhaps, because I have only listened to the songs individually over the last many decades.  The Wall is, indeed, a depressing story of isolation and abandonment.  The metaphorical wall is nevertheless a reality for many of us as it was in the 1970s.

The Wall speaks to bullying, helicopter parenting, inadequate educational systems, social isolation, and the many problems of today—particularly for our youth.  It is a surprisingly relevant rock opera for today.

We all build walls—knowingly or unknowingly.  In this technological age, it seems ever more efficient, as we bury ourselves behind digital screens.  Pink, the protagonist in The Wall, is not unlike the youth of today.  The only difference is that his isolation would appear much more visible and uncommon than it might today.

The song, “Mother”, especially hit a chord, last night.

“Mother do you think they’ll drop the bomb?
Mother do you think they’ll like this song?
Mother do you think they’ll try to break my balls?
Mother should I build the wall?
Mother should I run for President?
Mother should I trust the government?
Mother will they put me in the firing mine?
Is it just a waste of time?

Hush now baby, baby, don’t you cry.
Mama’s gonna make all your nightmares come true.
Mama’s gonna put all her fears into you.
Mama’s gonna keep you right here under her wing.
She won’t let you fly, but she might let you sing.
Mama’s gonna keep baby cozy and warm.
Ooh baby, ooh baby, ooh baby,
Of course mama’s gonna help build the wall.

Mother do you think she’s good enough?
For me?
Mother do you think she’s dangerous,
To me?
Mother will she tear your little boy apart?
Mother will she break my heart?

Hush now baby, baby don’t you cry.
Mama’s gonna check out all your girlfriends for you.
Mama won’t let anyone dirty get through.
Mama’s gonna wait up until you get in.
Mama will always find out where you’ve been.
Mama’s gonna keep baby healthy and clean.
Ooh baby, ooh baby, ooh baby,
You’ll always be baby to me.

Mother, did it need to be so high?”

I see so many of these questions being asked by our young.  I see so many parents micro-managing their children and shielding them from any difficulty—(“Of course mama’s gonna help build the wall.”).  It saddens me.  I wonder, will this current generation ask the question: “Mother, did it need to be so high?”

Be your best today; be better tomorrow.

Carpe momento!