We are born and we die

We are born and we die. Those are the only two parts of our lives that are certain. No one in history has gotten away with skipping either of those all important steps.
It’s what we sandwich in between those times is what is really important.
It’s the whole length versus depth thing.

I used to be in the military. For about a year I was in the Army Reserves. Long story short in the end it just wasn’t for me. That’s not the point of this brief story. The story involves KP duty. I think KP stands for kitchen patrol. Yeah, I was at a reserve drill and I was on KP duty. After washing what seemed like an infinite amount of dishes we had a few hours to sit around and basically do nothing.

Of course the smokers took this an open invitation to shorten their lives… over and over and over.

One of the other guys there that wasn’t smoking (one of the few) was a runner from Connecticut. He just couldn’t take it anymore. He finally piped up, “Why are you all smoking so much?”

The response from one knucklehead was kind of interesting. “We’re all going to die eventually so we’ll might as well enjoy ourselves”. (I don’t remember what he said exactly but it was something along those lines.) How stupid.

I’ve always remembered this moment and it has always bothered me. A similar conversation happened to me when I was a kid. It was with my brother-in-law. He was a smoker and he used to give ME a hard time when I’d go out running. He used to say, “You’re going to die healthy.” Of all the asinine things…

It’s true we need to live as much as we can in the time we are given. BUT, we don’t need to sabotage our later years to enjoy our younger years. Does smoking REALLY make your life that much better so that you can shorten your end of days by 5, 10 or more years? I think it is absurd.

It comes down to balance. How much can be enjoy our lives NOW and NOT mess up our lives later? Smoking is an obvious example of completely ignoring the future for a little pleasure now. Drinking is another one. Eating can be the same way. At what point to we smoke, drink or eat too much where our lives are negatively affected NOW?

We need to live for today with an eye on the future? We want to earn enough money to enjoy some things today but save enough to retire in the future right?

Another way to look at it is “instant gratification”. We’ve all heard that our society wants everything and it want it now. That’s why we all have the internet on our phones and 315 channels on our TV. It’s ok to have things now but at what price?
OK, let’s tie it all together and learn something, shall we.

We need to live for today and find joy in everything that we do. To do this every day of your life means that you are a success on this earth. Now here’s the challenge. Live for today but don’t mess up tomorrow.

A wonderful today is dumb if tomorrow and all the days after that suck.

Take that one to heart. Live for today but don’t forget about tomorrow.

Thanks for reading.

- Rick Copley “The Fitness Guru”

p.s. Remember to keep up with my on Facebook! My group is called “The Fitness Journey”.

p.p.s. Our new class schedule is 6am, 9am (childcare provided) and noon. All enrollees in my programs receive custom unlimited coaching and nutrition counseling. You do NOT need to come to classes to do this. It can all be done online. Email or call me for details!