Time We Have Wasted on the Way

When you meet people and consider relationships as you get older you start to realize that relationships are not the same as when you’re 20 years old or even 30 years old later in life you start to think about who you want to spend the rest of your life with and it’s not about raising kids or building home or any of that stuff anymore.

Life is really about the time and you realize how short that time is because by the time people are around 50 years old, they lived maybe 2/3 of their life. Let’s face it we are not living to 100 years old.

Most of us will be lucky to live until we’re about 80 to 90 years old at best. You wait until your 65 or 70 to retire only to enjoy what will be 10 to 15 years of your life or do you try to retire as early as possible, age 55-60 and do some things while you’re still physically able and mentally able to remember somethings. Who do you do those things with and who do you wanna spend those moments with?

I was talking to a friend the other day and we were having that most philosophical conversation about what is life all about, and someone had told them that life was about falling in love and doing good things for other people. My mind went in a different direction, after all we’re just base human beings that are about eating and living and dying. We internally can come up with some amazing idea of what life means to us because we are intelligent beings, but when you take a step back and look, we’re just like any other animal on the planet. We live, breathe, procreate, and die. It’s weird to think of it that way, but it is true.

People who don’t know you never know how much you love them or how much you meant to somebody else. There are millions of people on this planet billions of people on this planet and not every one of them will touch more than a handful of people in their life. Does making a difference count and how do you make a difference? I don’t know.

You hope that your efforts will leave a legacy and then other times you think it was just a flash in the pan. Part of our conversation was talking about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and I said your purpose is at the bottom and my friend said your purpose is at the top. You can’t get to the top unless you have the bottom all worked out, if you’re lucky you get to the top. It depends on where you are in your station of life and where you will be on the hierarchy.

So many of us are just wasting time, breathing air, eating food, and really not doing anything but using up resources on this planet. Yeah, we enjoy our TV shows and going out and socializing here and there, but is that our purpose in life? Or is our purpose in life to help other people so that they can be more successful in there so that they can move up the pyramid. What are we doing? What are we doing?

Life’s Journey’s

Where are you going?

I would have to say, over the course of my life, I’ve taken time out to look around, see where I’m at, where I’ve been, and ponder, where am I going? This time in my life has really given me cause to pause. I’m 52 years old and there are some milestones that I start to think about. Retirement age will come sooner than I would imagine. Early retirement at 55 is possible, and anywhere between 55-60, I could consider doing that.

Restarts

Do you ever think about what you would do if you could have a “do-over”. I don’t know if there are so much “do-overs” as I believe in restarts. I think that you can end one career or passion and put yourself into something else. We think about that passion that we have for whatever it is, and wonder, why am I not making money or following my dream doing what makes me happy? We do get stuck doing the job that puts the money in our pocket and enables us to live the life we think we want to live. Pay the bills, enjoy some entertainment, and breathe, so we hope.

What would you do if you had the support and willingness to try and know you might fail? It’s scary to start something new. As the saying goes, “…but what if you fly?” I think that confidence is great, but knowing that other have confidence in us is a special kind of strength. YES, believe in yourself, and having friends along the way that believe in us is important as well.

A Goal is a Dream with a Deadline.
Multiple Sources have been quoted.

End of Life

That title sounds a little morbid, but there really is 3 major phases of life for most people:

Childhood from 0-(until you leave your parents home) 26.
Adulthood (Work life on your own until Retirement) and
Retirement (Your “Golden Years”).

Retirement is End of Life for many people. The idea you stop working and you are done seems to be what a lot of people are living for. Living to die. And some people never stop working and never get to retire. So what do you do so you’re not just moving into an old age home to eat soft food and have your kids or grandkids wait for you to die so they can collect an inheritance.

You Choose When You Die

If you aren’t thinking about what you want to do in that last phase of life, and planning for it, you will never get there. You need to try and own your home if possible, get yourself as debt free as possible so you have live on a limited income if you’re not working, if you can. OK, easier said than done.

Let’s go way beyond that, because once you stop worrying about the basics, then what?

Will you travel? What hobbies and interests do want to develop or maintain? You look at someone like former President Jimmy Carter, who is still building homes with Habitat for Humanity and have to ask stand back and think how amazing that is. He’s not some administrator, he’s a guy on a job site with a hammer.

We have to find our passion, our love and keep the people and things in our life that matter to us. The point, as many have said, is to never grow old, and live a life on fire and with passion.

Fitness Challenges

How are you keeping your fitness in check during the home quarantine? Are you getting out for a walk or a run? Are you doing activities with your TV, such as Yoga, Crossfit, or maybe using something like a WiiFit? Whatever you do, I hope that you are motivated to keep moving.

Social Running

I think that one thing that has motivated me as a runner is social running. Before we were lockdown in our homes, I was out one to two nights a week, running with friends. There are social groups for running. We joke, they are drinking clubs with running problems. Socialized fitness activities can bring a person a lot more than just a good workout. These types of groups create an atmosphere that allows us to develop healthy exercise habits depending on how you leverage it.

Not Just for the Social

One thing that I experience in the beginning of being part of a running club was that these folks were actually training. They weren’t just getting out for a quick 5K, drinking a beer and going home. Many of these people are serious about doing more. As you talk to people, they are concerned about their performance, their health, injuries, and they are COMPETITIVE.

It is pretty typical to hear someone during the cooler race season months to say, what race are you running this weekend? Are you doing that 5K or 1/2 Marathon? What was your time? Did you get a PR (Personal Record)? What do you eat before you run? What kind of shoes do you like? The questions go on and on, and before you know it, you are part of a community.

Over the last decade, the idea of an individual getting personal electronic metrics has taken off. The first device I had was an iPod with a pedometer in my shoe that counted steps that connected with a system that Apple and Nike developed known as Nike+. I’ve been doing that system for a long time and found that there were a lot of other people using the system as well. It’s come a long way, and is now software based using GPS and gyros built into phones and watches, particularly the Apple Watch.

This all brings me back to my friends in my running group.

A Little Friendly Competition

Since we are all “Social Distancing” or really physical distancing and not meeting up like we used to until this virus threat passes, I decided to employ a feature on the Apple Watch that allows for a 7-Day competition with friends that have Apple Watches.

You can see this week I have three competitions going with various days left of the competitions. You score up to 600 points per day. Both people can get the 600 points. There are three rings of activities that you try to close and exceed as you can see.

Move Goal

You set your move goal, and each person can have their own personal move goal. This determines your active caloric burn beyond your resting calorie burn. So as you are more active throughout your day you can get Move Calories. As of right now I’ve gotten 82% of my goal. When I reach my goal, I will get 100 points. Double that goal and get 200 points.

Exercise Goal

Here is where everyone is equalized. 30 minutes is the goal for 100% exercise for the day. That will get you 100 points. You can exercise however works best for you. Do Yoga, Walk, Run, Bike, Swim, Kayak, you name it. Every 30 minutes of exercise will get you 100 points. Exercise for 1 hour, get 200 points and so on. Technically you could max out every day with 600 points on exercise alone, but you will mostly get 200 points just on your Move and Stand Goals. so if you exercise for an 1-1/2 hours a day, you should get close to getting all your points.

Stand Goal

The dreaded stand goal. There is this concept of move throughout your day. We tend to do our exercises and then be sedentary throughout the rest of our day. The stand goal gets you up once and hour and moving about. Step away from the computer and get that goal. Get 12 stands (once per hour), and you complete the circle. Also you get 100 points. If you do the math, you can get more than 100 points for stands, maxing out at 200 points for stands if you are up for 24 hours. Not likely for most people, but 18 hours isn’t unreasonable for many.

Competition Keeps Us Moving

So it’s this competitive nature that keeps us moving, keeps us stronger and healthier. It keeps us connected to remind us that we’ll all be running again soon, racing, training. No one hates to lose, but it’s all friendly. And that’s the spirit of this type of event. Get out there each day, do your best, and have fun.

I hope that no matter what people are doing, they are moving around and staying active, even as people feel isolated in their homes. The opportunity to feel more connected is there for those who enjoy that. But no matter what, take some time out of each day to maintain your physical fitness.