At 88, I remain a competitive runner. The finish line of my life is drawing close, and I hope to reach it having given the best of myself along the way. I've been training my body to meet the demands of this final stretch. But, I wonder, should I have asked more of my mind?
If I didn't exercise, I would release the hungry beasts that seek their elderly prey on couches, but not in the gym. The more I sweated, the more likely it was my doctor would continue to say, "Keep doing what you're doing, and I'll see you next year." My mind, on the other hand, seems less willing to give in to discipline. I have tried internet "brain games", solving algebraic problems flashing past and changing the route of virtual trains to avoid crashes. But these never approach my determination to remain physically fit as I move deeper into old age.
Despite having many friends in their 70s, 80s and 90s, I've been far too slow to realize that how we respond to aging is a choice made in the mind, not in the gym. Some of my healthiest friends carry themselves as victims abused by time. Other friends, many whose aching knees and hips are the least of their physical problems, find comfort in their ability to accept old age as just another stage of life to deal with. I would use the word "heroic" to describe the way they cope with aging.
One such friend recently called from a hospital to tell me a sudden brain disease had made him legally blind. He interrupted me as I began telling him how terribly sorry I was, "Bob, it could have been worse. I could have become deaf instead of blind."
Despite all the time I spend lifting weights and exercising, I realized I lack the strength to have said those words. It suddenly struck me I've paid a price for being a "gym rat." If there is one characteristic common to friends who are aging with a graceful acceptance of life's attacks, it is contentment. Aging had to be more than what I saw in a mirror.
But rather than undertaking a fundamental change in the way I face aging, I felt the place to begin would be to start small. A recent lunch provided a perfect example.
I've always found it extremely difficult to concentrate when I'm in a noisy setting. At this lunch with a friend in an outdoor restaurant, a landscaper began blowing leaves from underneath the bushes surrounding our table. Typically, after such a noisy interruption, I would have snapped, "Let's wait until he's finished!" then fallen silent. When the roar eventually faded, my roar would have drained (消耗) the conversation of any warmth. It troubled me that even a passing distraction could so easily take me from enjoying lunch with a good friend to a place that gave me no pleasure at all. I wanted this meal to be different.
My years in gyms had taught me to shake off pains and other distractions, never permitting them to stop my workout or run. I decided to treat the noise this way. I continued talking with my friend, challenging myself to hear the noise, but to hold it at a distance. The discipline so familiar to me in the gym - this time applied to my mind - proved equally effective in the restaurant. It was as though I had taken my brain to a mental fitness center.
Learning to ignore a leaf blower's roar hardly equips me to find contentment during my passage into ever-deeper old age. But I left the lunch feeling I had at least taken a small first step in changing behavior that stood in the way of that contentment.
Could I employ that same discipline to accept with dignity the inevitable decline awaiting me like the finish line? Hoping that contentment will guide me as I make my way along the path yet to be traveled.
