In my personal quest to understand and experience the benefits of change, I have taken a few short cuts. Many can testify to this, I'm sure. Simply, we jump on someones idea and as a group or class, we follow and take the prescribed medicine or advice. If we have never done anything like this, or there is a season of time between attempts, we have short term success. After the honeymoon is over, what is our course. What direction does the compass indicate we are headed? Now the last thing I am suggesting is that all is in vain. Not at all. Maybe we have lost some (weight) and we get a glimpse of the new us, and the feedback that accompanies our success. Did you notice I said success. We buy the new smaller sized clothes, and receive positive comments. This really is good stuff, by the way. Now, ask those who are giving you support for your success, how to maintain and insure what you have started, doesn't take a hiatus somewhere and leaves you thinking your not a winner. You are a winner, in that you decided you wanted change. Let me encourage you here. When your in your 20s to 30s you are for the most part taken care of health-wise by youth. As we leave our 30s and begin to think about our 40s we get a little scared and start putting more thought about life and its challenges. When we leave our 40s and get it on in the 50s we wake up. For some its party time all over again, and for others its a tragic realization that scares the crap out of us. The main cause for alarm is because we are not informed. Someone has told us that only a few genetically gifted will enjoy the benefits of cover page attention, and a percentage of others will be the envoy of the other majority. This being said, we have a culture of those that have given up. They seek the companionship of those that don't pose a threat to the condition and thinking of complacency. "In other words, we don't want to be challenged to the point we need to leave our comfort zone. Comfortable is good. It is also deadly. We have no guarantee of tomorrow. This is a given. There is a question that comes up when we contemplate our future. "Is it wrong to plan for a younger tomorrow?" Now I'm not suggesting we go out and buy synthetic change, but that we try to position ourselves mentally, physically and spiritually so that we can push against the stuff that stereotypes us as normal. When we hear that someone is in their late 40s and are entering marathons and lifting 130000 to 20000 lbs of weight in and hour or so, we think that maybe they are freaks. Hey!! They are!! Only because that greater percentage of us has not accepted the fact that it is possible to do this at this age. LOL. Please don't laugh here when I say there are 70 year old people that still think and do stuff that those in their 40s struggle to do. Why? Because they push against and rebel when they are told that at 70 you need to make plans for entering the care home. Personally I know a gentleman of 82 years that still has his own fishing boat and still passes the driver license test. His wife of 58 years of marraige passed away, and now he has told me he seems to be in unknown territory. The idea of a younger wife who will most likely be changing his diapers one of these days, doesn't let him consciously pursue this option. However he has no problem finding someone to pass the time with when he feels lonely, which is a fair amount of the time. As I talked to him and sought the answer to his amazing success at turning back father time, I was drawn to his thinking and proactive attitude toward things that the most of us have not considered to be important. He told me that when he was just a teenager, long before they began to curse animal fat, that he one day saw a skillet full of grease that had hardened, and made the decision that he would never eat from that again. He told me how he made a grill outside of his house and cooked his meats and everything else on it. He told me he ate sweet potatoes for energy. He ate fruit and veggies that were grown in the garden. He never ever mentioned some sort of diet and nutrition organization, just some simple changes he decided many years ago. He told me how he did some exercises each morning and evening every day. He told me how he very rarely drank alcohol, and how much he saw drinking water as way of cleansing his body. As I listened, I almost inserted some of my clinically confirmed ideas, but decided to let him educate me more. He told me about how he would go for walks to work stuff out. After listening for a good amount of time, I was now certain more than ever that I could jump in and experience his youth. The thing that really juiced me was the idea of how much good information we have now in comparison to that which he had when he was younger.
So now what do I want from change? We think of the short term, that's a given. There is the idea of a companion, who we profile as the perfect one. OK, our change will get this for us for certain. What will this be like in 3-5 years from now? Will we still be motivated by our vision of pushing back, or will we find ourselves reverted back to where we were when we embarked on our mission of change. Are we motivated by the thought of more energy? What will we do with it? Will guys have even more libido than they think they have now? Careful guys, that you don't ditch your wife or partner here. A lot of times these little jewels have been waiting patiently for us to take the lead. "If they have taken the lead, follow them. I am not recommending the kind of change where we abandon an other because we feel they will get in the way of our effort to make change. Change is about leading. If we lead, we don't jump ship. Be courageous. Show passion and desire toward change. Don't be selfish. Have a positive response that makes others want to be a part of something better. If we turn them off with a spirit of being self centered, then we are the losers here. Lets make our goals an epidemic. We can energize our friends and demonstrate to our enemies that we are not focused on shortsightedness, but long term success. To do this, we will want to be absolutely confident that the answers we give them will have proof and long term results. This we will achieve by being familiar with the bases and fact of what it is that we need in order to better move forward, and put behind us the myth and mystery of a better life, and have a fuller sense of gratitude for the very fact that we are a living and breathing creature. So, how do we see ourselves one,two,three years form now? How about 3 days from now. Set your goals, but set them for a really short term. Go ahead and visualize longer term stuff, then back it off a bit and enjoy the successes of your short term visions. This is the only way to make change work.
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