by Thomas Russell

Created on: July 24, 2009

I'll be honest. I hate the idea of growing older. Every minute I walk this earth is one minute closer to heaving myself into a pine box forever. But, that's a fact of life. You live to die. Or so the majority of people accept.

That's the defeatist approach to survival. I've long since thought my athletic career has seen better days. I've played many sports throughout my life, and I've experienced my shares of aches and pains attributed to punishing my body to the extreme. In my teens, I would get hurt, look around and see everybody else shaking it off and playing through the pain. So I did as well. In my twenties (my prime) I looked at pain as a mere hindrance to my sporting life. Shake it off as always, everybody would say. In my thirties, I could no longer manage to wake up the next day and feel rejuvenated. In my forties, those injuries I had incurred years before have come back to haunt me many-fold. With two wrists surgeries to fuse bones together, a bulging disc (requiring two separate epidural shots), injured knee that required surgery, and with a plethora of irritating ailments, I could have, should have collected myself onto the aged shelf.

But an awesome epiphany has come over me in the past year. I have realized I only have one life to live. Why travel down the path of despair and mediocrity, wishing I could have done things most people would eschew as pure folly? Five months after knee surgery, I ran a 5k. It was painful, but I finished. Six weeks later, I ran a 10k. It was painful, but I finished. Six weeks later, I participated in a race called, "Urban Adventure," much like the "Amazing Race" on television. This time I felt no pain, but the experience certainly taxed me more than any other sporting event (except maybe a marathon I ran when I was 16). But I finished.

You see, the thought of giving up is so far removed from my psyche. Some would say it's my stubborn refusal to accept my fate. I'll go with that. I'm bound to at some point be physically unable to accomplish the things I have and am still experiencing. But if I can physically manage it without pushing my body to the limit and paying the price later, why not? I've talked to people about the things I've done and they think I'm crazy. It simply perplexes me that people half my age won't think beyond the box and do things that would enhance their lives. It doesn't have to be a sporting event. It could be something as humanitarian as going to a nursing home and speaking to some of the lonely residents. It could be working with underprivileged kids who are in dire need of someone who can simply show they matter. That's a life worth leading.

I once had a boss who was the epitome of someone who lived in the now. He bought into several franchises as a twenty-something budding entreprenuer. But throughout his life, he tried so many different things that most people would sit on the sidelines for. He skeet shooted for the first time. He parachuted for the first time. So many things he did in life were done because he wanted to be a willing participant and not a disinterested spectator. Sadly, at age 39, he tragically passed away. But I can guarantee you that those 39 years were spent living life to the fullest.

I don't want to be one of those spectators who regretted not doing something because someone told me I was too old to do it. I don't think anyone should dictate what you should experience in life because when all is said and done, that pine box you'll be placed in should house a body that saw an existence that would prove to everybody that you graduated from the school of hard knocks and lived a life that most people wished were theirs.

Carpe Diem!

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