CAN I? WILL I?
“Finally, exasperated, I asked her if after 107 years she had any advice for younger people. She looked up at me, eyes flashing. “Yes,” she shot back. “Life is short. Don’t run so fast you miss it.” (Dan Buttner, The Blue Zones Quotes)
At 73, I’m in the throes of making minor lifestyle adjustments that I’m hoping will yield major results. I say minor because I’m aware of a tendency to set major goals for myself, only to start too fast and lose momentum half way through. The more ambitious the goal, the lower the likelihood that I’ll see it through. What can derail me is the sheer, intimidating mass of the undertaking. So, now to break it down into simple, chewable bites. And recruit the help I need to do so.
It’s the same when facing any daunting task, as was cleaning out a basement full of storage in order to move homes a couple of years ago. So as not to get derailed in our move to the condo, I recruited the services of a friend and lifestyle manager, the lovely Louise, to help me work through things one small task at a time. With each small accomplishment a momentum began building. Increment by increment we tackled the whole basement, and other rooms besides, all the while having a good time. At one point, mired in piles of old photos, Louise sensed me freezing up and gently asked: “What’s happening for you right now?” What was happening was my being drawn down a rabbit hole of old memories, overwhelmed at the speed with which so many decades had passed. And not a little overcome with a sense of urgency, in my eighth decade, to make the best of the time I had left.
Perhaps this is what resonated when I later encountered Dan Buttner’s Blue Zones series on Netflix, and the words of the 107 year old crone: “Life is short. Don’t run so fast you miss it.”
Robert Kane, another Blue Zones advocate, offers this advice:
“Rather than exercising for the sake of exercising, try to make changes to your lifestyle. Ride a bicycle instead of driving. Walk to the store instead of driving. Use the stairs instead of the elevator. Build that into your lifestyle. The chances are that you will sustain that behavior for a much longer time. And the name of the game here is sustaining. These things that we try — usually after some cataclysmic event has occurred, and we now want to ward off what seems to be the more perceptible threat of dying — don’t hold up over the long haul. We find all sorts of reasons not to do it.”
This advice is counterintuitive to the inner script I’ve been following — or should I say running to — for many years. That script was about ticking boxes and chalking up achievements as if rehearsing for the role of Super-Human Being. In the process, as the saying goes, my mind was writing chèques that my body couldn’t cash. Most recently, my hip is paying the price for that over-ambition. Even as I was told to pace my PRP recovery slowly, to resume my physical activity by small, incremental steps, I perversely tried to prove I could get back to my prior fitness routines as soon as possible.
Too much, too soon. And my orthopedist was not at all pleased.
While exhorting others to become more introspective, it took an embarrassing exchange with my orthopedist for me to understand the “why” of leading an examined life. I had been focusing on a tiny subset of life, my fitness/self-image, under the illusion that to constantly “best” myself is to justify my existence. Not so. Rather than constantly searching for a sense of purpose, or asking what to do with the time I have left, all I really need do is apply in daily life what I’ve gleaned from decades of transpersonal studies and training. Be my own laboratory and take small, reproducable steps in the desired direction.
This brings us to my proclaimed “minor lifestyle adjustment”. My goal is to pace myself as I incorporate the things I’m learning from the Blue Zones folk about well-rounded diets, exercise, and lifestyle. Rather than letting the fear of mortality drive me to ever greater achievements, ever more “enriching” experiences, my new goal is be fully engaged in daily life, establish healthful longevity habits, and sustain them for as long as possible.
Can I? Will I? Stay tuned…