Aretha! — Sgt. Tony Ludlow, blog post for 12/312015
“Some people die at 25,” said Benjamin Franklin, “and aren’t buried until 75.”
“Oldness” can occur at 25 or 75. It doesn’t matter what your age. I’ve known plenty of 25 year olds who gave up, found a rut, and settled in. Then there are those at the other end of the spectrum like 92 year old Ernie Andrus; running from coast to coast to raise money to restore the ship he served on in WWII. He started in California. Tomorrow he’ll be running through Covington, Louisiana! http://coast2coastruns.com/
Age, like life itself, is individually defined. It has little to do with chronological age!
Being lifeless, lazy, “woe-is-me,” boring, uninformed, negative, resigned, and irrelevant isn’t a matter of age, it’s a choice. It’s a personal attitude and perception. It’s a life orientation. It’s the lens through which life is viewed and interpreted. I have Facebook friends who have an 80% negative posting record. They’re critical of everything in a world where being a critic takes no talent, no creativity, and no insight. It’s Eeyore’s commentary on life.
Pooh: “Oh, what a beautiful day!”
Eeyore, sounding depressed: “Well, it’s raining somewhere.”
I turned 58 in July, and I’m pretty damn proud of that. And why shouldn’t I be? (It’s better than the alternative.)
* I’m smarter now than at any other time in my life – and YOU should be smarter today than at any other time in YOUR life too! I also have a greater sense of what I don’t know . . . yet.
* I’ve got two times the life experiences and twice the wisdom I had when I was in my 20s. I like what Muhammad Ali said, “The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.”
* I’m more patient and more tolerant now than ever. I’m also less willing to endure insult and disrespect.
* I don’t suffer from the insecurities of youth or the need to impress others at this age.
* At this age, I don’t compete with anyone except the man I was yesterday. (I’d like to improve on yesterday’s version of me.)
* Most of the things on my bucket list have been checked off. (I have to add more things.)
Have you ever heard of the Dunkers? Their formal name was German Baptist Brethren, having moved from Germany to Pennsylvania in the mid-1700s. The Dunkers, like all Anabaptists, baptize their new members, only after a public profession of faith, by immersion. Instead of sprinkling infants (or adults), the method of baptism practiced by the Dunkers was to submerge the candidate for church membership completely under the baptismal waters.
Religious groups typically develop a statement of faith, a creed, a catechism, or articles of belief that explain what they believe and why. Mostly intended to give the new convert or church member some idea as to the theological framework from which they have formulated their belief system. These confessions of faith, once drawn up, bind the convert for as long as they remain a member of that group or denomination.
But the Dunkers were an exception.
Benjamin Franklin’s remarkable friend, Michael Welfare, a founding member of the German Baptist Brethren, explained to Franklin why his sect wouldn’t compose a creed or articles of belief.
“When we were first drawn together as a society,” said Mr. Welfare, “it had pleased God to enlighten our minds so far as to see that some doctrines, which we once esteemed truths, were errors; and that others, which we had esteemed errors, were real truths. From time to time He has been pleased to afford us farther light, and our principles have been improving, and our errors diminishing. Now we are not sure that we are arrived at the end of this progression, and at the perfection of spiritual or theological knowledge; and we fear that, if we should once print our confession of faith, we should feel ourselves as if bound and confin’d by it, and perhaps be unwilling to receive farther improvement, and our successors still more so, as conceiving what we their elders and founders had done, to be something sacred, never to be departed from.”
What’s unusual about this “confession,” especially among religious groups, is how willing they were to admit that they might not be right, that they were open to further enlightenment, that they might be in error unconsciously. They acknowledged that they may currently be wrong about some area of belief and were not bound to any confession that might reflect that error.
In religious and political life such an acknowledgment is unheard of. When was the last time you heard a preacher or a politician admit to being wrong? The nature of politics and religion, two strains of thought steeped in absolutism, cry out for rigid dogma. All truth is local, as one philosopher put it, and it’s held tightly with both hands.
But what if you were exposed to something new in 2016, would you be open to it? What if you were challenged, or given an opportunity to step out of your comfort zone, would you be willing to do it? What if fear was not a factor? What if money weren’t an issue? What if your heart and mind were open—like a parachute—to new learning, new ides, new concepts, new ways of thinking?
In the movie “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” the main character attempted to post an internet dating site profile and discovered that he had no life experiences to list that might make him appear more interesting to the opposite sex.
The movie made me think of my own life experiences … and yours. How was my 2015? How was yours?
Did we add things to our list of interesting life experiences?
Did we read provocative, informative, and challenging books?
Were we physically active, intellectually hungry, spiritually reflective?
Did we exercise 4 or more times a week?
Did we do two hours of cardio a week?
Did we read at least 12 books in 2015?
Did we examine our own lives, our beliefs, our actions in an effort to root out even the hint of hypocrisy or hate?
Did we spend time, daily or weekly, in quiet meditation?
Were we more active in 2015 than in 2014?
I’m as active as I ever have been in my life. And with the exception of a few more wrinkles, mostly laugh lines – those that give my face that extra “Sean Penn-esque” character — and the gray hair that literally popped up overnight one morning and makes me look distinguished (or so I tell myself!), I feel like I did when I was 25!
These days there are high profile members of groups that were once called “old people” or “senior citizens” doing incredible things. The members of Led Zeppelin have an average age of 68! Bruce Springsteen is 66. Stevie Nicks is 67. Samuel L. Jackson, currently staring in Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight” is 66, along with his co-stars Kurt Russell (64), Jennifer Jason Leigh (53), Tim Roth (54), Michael Madsen (57) and Bruce Dern (79). Helen Mirren and Carly Simon are 70. Tina Turner is 76. Liam Neeson, 63. Denzel Washington is 59. Vera Wang is 66. Tom Hanks, Prince, Sharon Stone, Angela Bassett, and Ellen DeGeneres are all 57. John Stamos, 52. Lenny Kravitz and Brad Pitt are 51. And 73 year old Aretha Franklin had them on their feet this week at the Kennedy Center Honors as she belted out “Natural Woman,” a song co-written by 2015 Kennedy Center Honoree Carole King—also 73.
And apparently Rolling Stones member Keith Richards (72) is indestructible, but looks 144.
I could go on. But I think you get the message.
In a youth oriented culture that presumes that all things young are good and all things older are past their expiration date, it’s easy to get things upside down and think of age as a liability rather than what it actually is, an asset.
It makes me cringe when I meet people near my age who live down to the stereotype of blasé. They’ve spent a lifetime taking lousy care of themselves and exploring new ways to be less and less as they get older and older, the accumulated result of years of poor personal life management and progressive myopathy. And then they blame their age as the reason that they feel like crap. Or they apply their creativity to the formulation of new excuses.
But it can all be reversed! The tide can be stemmed. I’ve seen it hundreds of times!
I’m not talking about people who’ve been sidelined by the medical diagnosis of catastrophic illness or injury. The impaired condition of the sick and injured is understandable. But even then there are ways to focus on what you CAN do. My buddy and former boot camper, Steve Collins, had a heart transplant in 2011 that has put him in a wheelchair. Instead of sitting back and saying “woe is me,” Steve has taken up his guitar and become a local singer songwriter! He also tries—mostly in vain—to be funny! Way to go, bro! Steve and I are the same age.
No, who I’m talking about is the person who spent too many years drinking too much, partying too much, smoking, doing drugs, and eating tons of crap. Those who, despite all of the advice to do so, have refused to exercise and wonder why they’re so weak and can’t do things anymore.
Sadly, the flame in so many people’s lives start to flicker at some point. And too often, circumstances, setbacks, and loss start to loom so large that the flame goes out all together. People start stumbling through one meaningless day after another, one meaningless relationship after another, one meaningless year after another. They often medicate their pain or depression or dysfunction with more poor life management decisions and risky behavior.
I’ve seen how bankruptcy, divorce, the death of a loved one, being fired or laid off, failing health, being stuck in a loveless passionless marriage or dysfunctional relationship — and the whole host of unrealized expectations — can have a depressing and debilitating effect on people, extinguishing that light for years, sometimes forever, being defined in their own minds by their mistakes, missteps, misfortunes, and mishaps.
One woman I know lost her father and then spent the two weeks following his funeral in bed, getting up only to go to the bathroom and to eat an occasional bowl of soup. When she finally emerged, she was never the same. The light went out when her father died and the flame of her life has never burned the same since. She has become a perpetual victim, blaming life and others for her plight, with little resemblance to the younger woman she was before her father’s passing. And she is not alone. Giving up is easy.
The deaths of our friends and families can leave us with so much emptiness and grief that we can’t see how to move on without them. I myself lost people I loved this past year. Dear friends who were alive and in my life this time last year are gone forever.
Instead of perpetual grief, wouldn’t our loved ones want us to double our efforts to live life with passion and enjoyment, honoring the memory of their lives by living with more intention and purpose?
How many over-comers do you know? Those who’ve put life’s setbacks in their proper place in the past and are thriving today, moving forward? People do it every single day! They overcome insurmountable odds and obstacles every day because they choose to move forward. Or in some cases, they simply have no choice. They must move forward. Failure and defeat are not options. People are depending on them.
We may never be what we were before those circumstances put us on a path not of our choosing, but we can be something great again … or something greater. We can feed the flame. We can light a bonfire!
As we think of the prospects of a new year, there are things that we can do to relight that flame and to ensure that the light within us burns brightly.
Here are things to think on. Things to Make 2016 Count!
1. If you’re depressed about your weight – lose the weight. Seriously. Quit bitchin’ about it and just do it! Eat less, move more. It’s just that simple.
2. If you wish that you’d finished your degree – go back to school. A friend of mine graduated from law school at age 63! But don’t be fooled. You can get a good education for “a dollar fifty and late charges from the public library.” But if it’s the degree you seek, there are ways to get it.
3. If you’re upset because you’re out of shape – get on an exercise program (I happen to know of an AWESOME program! www.usmcfitnessbootcamp.com)
4. If you’re in debt – come up with a plan to get debt-free. Credit cards are choking the life out of most people. Spend less than you make. Do you really have to buy as much house as the mortgage company will let you borrow? Do you really need a new car or two? The boat? The lake house? Live below your means. Make a plan!
5. If you’re in a loveless marriage or dysfunctional relationship – fix it … or get out of it! Some broken marriages can be fixed. Others can’t. And throwing money at a bad or unhappy marriage won’t work. Trust me. The trips and stuff will only mask the misery for a while. Life is too short. But if you’re in an unhappy relationship, life can be so very very long. So very long. Fix it if you can, or formulate a plan to get out of it!
6. If you’re in a dead end job or meaningless career – get out of it. Formulate a plan to do something that makes you happy, brings meaning to your life, and makes a difference in the lives of others.
Lots of guys I know get in dead-end soulless jobs that pay well, only to find that they have to buy “stuff” to compensate for the life-drain of their soul-sucking-job. But the spending gets them in debt too deep to get out of the job. The new house, the new cars, the new stuff, become shackles and prison. Stuck. Slavery. And most find, too late sometimes, that it’s easier to make a dollar than a difference. But wouldn’t you rather make a difference?
7. Emancipation is possible, but it probably won’t be easy or painless. But it can be done. I’ve started over more than once. I’ve even started over in a foreign country with few friends, little money, and no family to support me. I know that it can be done! Don’t be afraid to start over.
8. If you’re not happy with your life – figure out a way to be happy! Don’t look for someone to make you happy. Happiness is an inside job. People tend to be as happy as they make up their minds to be.
9. Relight your internal flame if it’s gone out. Pour gasoline on the flame you’ve got! Start a bonfire!
10. Stay relevant.
11. Ditch reality TV and read a couple of books a month, things that’ll stimulate your mind, challenge your assumptions, and expand your vocabulary.
In fact, let me say this about reality TV and cable “news”: don’t get your heroes from it, don’t get your theology from it, nor your sense of social justice, nor your understanding of history, nor your knowledge of racial inequality, nor your history of the Civil Rights Movement, nor your value system, nor your understanding of too much at all. It’s entertainment, not education. Turn it off and read something redemptive.
12. Stay informed. Get your news from a variety of sources, those without an agenda or a bias.
13. “Good enough” seldom is. Go for awesome!
14. Laugh a lot every day! Make a face when you do.
15. Make a face when you exercise too.
16. Buy some new music from some new musicians. Something recorded in the past three years.
17. Eat good stuff. You remember the four food groups, right?
18. Watch some great movies.
19. Drink less alcohol.
20. Save some money.
21. Do some research. Learn something new every day that isn’t job related.
22. Find something to be passionate about, but not obsessive about.
23. Quit living in the past, but learn something from it.
24. Learn to define “enough.” I can’t overstate the need to do this. In fact, I’m not sure that the lowering of expectations and learning how to define enough aren’t the building blocks of happiness.
25. Don’t settle. Most people “accept the love (and the treatment) we think we deserve.”
26. Quit making excuses.
27. Learn to say “no.” Learn especially to say no to toxic and dysfunctional people, relationships, and situations. Sometimes you just have to cut your losses and let it go.
28. Quit smoking. Quit smoking. Quit smoking. Quit smoking. Quit smoking.
29. Drink more water.
30. Run a 5K … or a 10K … or a half marathon … or go the distance and run a full marathon!
31. Run, jog, swim, power walk, or ride a bike for 2 hours a week.
32. Do something physical that will require you to get out of your comfort zone.
33. Help someone who can’t do one single thing for you in return. They can’t advance your career, fulfill your pleasures, or pay you back in any way. And do this as quietly and as secretly as possible. No humble-bragging on Facebook.
34. Learn to say “yes” to new adventures, new friends, and new possibilities.
35. Make a sizable anonymous donation to a worthy charity.
36. Make a new friend outside of your own race. Take a look at your Facebook friends — is it monochrome? — and see if you can’t add some variety there!
37. “Someday” is probably not going to be on the weekend or on a Friday, so redeem every day … even Mondays!
38. Avoid extremes. Avoid extremes. Avoid extremes. Avoid extremes. Avoid extremes.
39. Think for yourself.
40. For the most part, and in just about every instance, no one is out there planning your success and thinking about your happiness. You have to do that yourself. That’s YOUR job!
“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
~ Dylan Thomas (1914 – 1953)
Bring it on 2016!
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We’re on vacation until Monday.
All classes meet INSIDE on Monday, January 4th. Holiday Challenge Weigh-In will be on Monday as well!
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!
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TODAY’S NUTRITION TALK
by Gunnery Sergeant Ashley Holloway, Registered Dietitian, LDN
(A Registered Dietitian has a BS in Food Science, followed by a one year internship through an accredited university, and then with the recommendation of the internship program’s supervisor, a national examination is required. After that, an RD must have continuing education units annually in order to remain active and registered. An RD is an expert, not a hobbyist or a “food enthusiast.”)
Vitamin C and Colds
Have you heard that taking vitamin C can help prevent colds? Or that it can shorten the severity or duration? This notion first became popular in 1970 when Nobel Prize winning chemist, Linus Pauling’s book, “Vitamin C and the Common Cold” was first published. The book was lacking in evidence and came with very little scientific backing, with Pauling having never written a single scientific study on the topic!
Foods high in vitamin C such as red bell peppers, oranges, strawberries, and grapefruits all have been shown to have health benefits. But study after study has shown that vitamin C does very little to prevent the common cold in the general population. Nor does it lessen the severity or duration of a cold if you already have one.
However, there is one group that may benefit from the additional vitamin C. Research has shown that those under high physical stress, such as marathon runners and even soldiers doing sub arctic exercises, can actually decrease their risk of catching a cold by half if they take a daily dose of vitamin C.
If you do want to take in some extra vitamin C, how much do you need? The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) is 75 mg for women and 90 mg a day for men. You can easily get this amount in half a cup of orange juice, or a cup of strawberries, or a whole kiwi.
In short, if you like foods high in vitamin C, then eat up! But keep your tissues handy too.
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SEE YOU ON THE QUARTERDECK ON MONDAY!
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!
Tony