Sunday Story…Musings on Mortality

 

Lately, I've been musing on mortality. As you can tell from the last couple of posts, I have now reached what would be considered three-quarters of the way to 100. When I turned 50, I said, "Maybe I'm middle-aged. Got 50 more years to go." But now, on the cusp of 70, it's only 30. And that feels like the blink of an eye.

None of us is getting out of here alive; that's been the fact since the day you were born. Everything we do is to live the most fruitful and productive lives we can, making connections, building relationships, providing value to the world, and discovering our purpose —the one we were put on this planet to fulfill.

But the question is, did we get there? Did you manage to do that? Did you find your purpose? Did you fulfill your purpose? These are some of the questions that I've been asking myself. I worry that I haven't done enough to achieve the purpose for which I was put here. I fear that I will leave behind more problems than I solved.

Most of these questions are unanswerable, or the answers may elude us in our own lifetimes. The people that we leave behind will have those answers. They will know if you've done enough, they will know if you solved more problems than you left. In many ways, the people, the relationships, the connections that we leave behind are, in fact, our legacy.

If you're interested in building muscle and strength, sign up for a free fitness assessment at www.crossfitodyssey.com or reach out to me directly, and let's get you started on your journey to extraordinary results.

John Mariotti

www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

www.crossfitodyssey.com

775-338-2412

 

 

 

 

Sunday Story…It’s your Job!

There's an old saying, "Youth is wasted on the young." And the older I get, the truer that appears to be.

When we're young, we look and feel immortal. 40 looks so far off. 50-60 is a region for older adults and grandparents. 70, 80? Absolutely ancient.

Here's the problem: The older we get, the more work we have to do to maintain our youth and vitality. When we're young, it's there for us anytime we want it. We heal faster. We move more easily. As we age, those things don't come as easily.

Now, however, staying in shape and working out is your job, and just like any other job, you get paid for results. If you don't treat working out like a job, it becomes just something you do occasionally. You must be committed to it, just like you are at your job.

You've heard me write about it a lot over the last few months. You must attack your fitness just like you attack anything else worth doing. This means:

• Lifting weights
• Working on your cardiovascular fitness
• Working on your vast twitch muscles (in other words, sprinting)
• Working on your VO2 max (in other words, how much oxygen can you uptake over the course of any amount of work)

All these things are necessary for your fitness. All these things are now your job.

The key to health span, in other words, how well you're going to live as you age, lies primarily in your fitness. There are other things that you must do: sleep well, eat well. But if I don't have fitness, those other things are not going to get me the results that fitness will.

The bottom line is do the work, reap the benefits. Enjoy your life as you become older because getting older is not an option. Being old is a choice.

If you're interested in learning how to build muscle and strength, sign up for a free fitness assessment at www.crossfitodyssey.com or reach out to me directly, and let's get you started on your journey to extraordinary results.

John Mariotti

www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

www.crossfitodyssey.com

775-338-2412

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday Story…69

As you know, last Saturday was my birthday. And I have to admit that I've been struggling with this particular number, sixty-nine. When you turn forty, even sixty-three, it's not that big a deal. You really don't think about what that number means. But in this particular case, this number seems to carry at least some significance for me.

You see, after sixty-nine comes seventy, and I've got to admit that seventy sounds really, really old. Older than sixty-nine. Older than sixty. Old. Now I know that this is just my own perception, my own stuff around aging, right? Maybe for you it's sixty, or it's fifty, who knows? But I can tell you that when I look at turning seventy next year, I'm a little bit disturbed—or perturbed, something.

So, I've been thinking about that, and what is the why? Why do I perceive seventy as being old? Why not eighty? Why not ninety? Why not a hundred? I intend to live a long, healthy life until I can't anymore. In other words, I want my health span to be at the top of the game all the way through. So really, seventy is just another number. Still, I have all of this baggage that I'm carrying around with it, and I'm just kind of wondering as you're reading this, what kind of baggage are you carrying at sixty-eight, seventy-two, eighty-six? How is that working for you?

If you're interested in learning how to build muscle and strength (and find discipline), sign up for a free fitness assessment at www.crossfitodyssey.com or reach out to me directly, and let's get you started on your journey to extraordinary results.

John Mariotti

www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

www.crossfitodyssey.com

775-338-2412

 

 

 

Sunday Story…Happy Birthday to me!

If you're reading this on Sunday, yesterday was my birthday. I'm celebrating 69 years on this planet. And I thought I would leave you with a couple of thoughts. As you can see, the picture posted is of me doing some regular old work with a shovel. And this is why I do what I do in the gym every day. So I can do the regular things - gardening, digging, walking - all those things that make life worth living.

Physical training isn't just about doing push-ups and pull-ups; it's also about developing overall strength and endurance. Physical training at this age is about how good I can feel after I do all the things that I want to do. It does no good to go out in the garden if I'm going to pay a price for that activity the next day or the next two or three days or weeks. The only way to prevent that is through regular physical training. You need to lift weights regularly. Most of the professionals we see these days claim to strength train two days a week, and I would agree that this is the absolute bare minimum - two days a week. I lift weights five days a week.

Most importantly, you should do hard things regularly, whether that means hitting Kilimanjaro or Machu Picchu (as Ellie has taken groups and plans to take another one next year to Portugal, I think) or spending a day with your kids or grandkids doing all the things they want to do. The only way to do that as we get older is by continuing to train our physicality. Doing nothing is worse than doing something hard.

If you're interested in learning how to build muscle and strength, sign up for a free fitness assessment at www.crossfitodyssey.com or reach out to me directly, and let's get you started on your journey to extraordinary results.

John Mariotti

www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

www.crossfitodyssey.com

775-338-2412