Don’t we wait our entire working lives for retirement? Not consciously of course, especially when we’re younger and in the prime of that aforementioned life. But we’re aware from the time we begin working that we need to think about that upcoming season called retirement. That awareness is primarily concerned with means to maintain our lives in a financially comfortable manner even after we no longer work for a regular paycheck.
I kept a countdown calendar for the last four working years of my life. I thought those years would drag on and on. They didn’t. Retirement crept up so fast it astonished me in retrospect. I once wrote about the phenomenon of how time seems to speed up as we get older. Here’s the link to that post. Those four years flew by.
After 50 years of working for a living, I was really looking forward to a life of leisure, a life chosen completely by me, control over my own time, a life I envisioned to be eminently comfortable. And truthfully, that’s what I got. It’s the life I’m living now.
And it’s not all it was cracked up to be.
As I’ve written many times before, I struggle, searching for purpose. I completely waste a hell of a lot of time. Some days I do nothing that I judge to have any redeeming value.
I don’t think God created us to be self-absorbed. And it doesn’t feel right to live only for yourself. One of my dearest friends, Carla, has been retired for more than 15 years. We’ve had deep discussions about how God wants us to live a life of service to others. She and her husband, Keith, are amazing servants to their fellow human beings. During COVID, when much of their service was shut down, it had a real effect on their health and happiness.
This niggling feeling that there’s more to this retirement season of life also affects our physical well-being. And as I mentioned in my short post last Friday, hearing Gary Brecka say “aging is the aggressive pursuit of comfort” hit me like a ton of bricks. That statement pertained more to physical comfort than to my previous musings. In speaking of purpose, I primarily considered mental, spiritual, cultural, and environmental comfort. Though I know I need to lose weight and get more exercise to be healthy, I just didn’t think at all of physical comfort as part of the equation.
Yet, we’ve all heard the term–use it or lose it. It’s a truism no one can argue when it comes to our physical body. Unused cells atrophy. Our bodies become stiff and rusty, dementia is the collective term for degeneration of our brains. I don’t worry much about my brain. I write often about how much I enjoy and pursue cerebral activity. But my body—well, that’s another kettle of fish altogether.
Brecka’s contention that aging is the aggressive pursuit of comfort is true in my case. I’ve never been very physical, but since I retired my main physical activity is sitting. Even when I had a desk job I was up and down all day, running around the office. Getting up in the morning, getting ready for work, going to work, getting stuff done around the house in the limited time I had all afforded much more opportunity for movement than I get now. Now, when I have more time to pay attention to my physical health, I don’t want to move more…it’s simply not comfortable for me.
During my bout with cancer last year, the doctors ordered me to get more exercise. It was very uncomfortable, but I could tell how much better I felt as a result. I knew I should continue but, you know, it’s not comfortable. Walking in the winter in Florida is ok, but summer, no thank you. I discovered I like doing exercise in the pool and have been good about that. I felt pretty proud of myself for doing that tiny bit of water resistance movement until Gary Brecka and his Ultimate Human podcast invaded my world.
Everything Brecka says makes so much sense. I’m going to have to drag myself, kicking and screaming, out of that comfortable physical world I live in. I know that what he says is true, and costs nothing except time and energy. One thing, in particular, I’ve learned from him may help me finally deal with my insanely high, and highly resistant, blood pressure. I’ve known all along that weight and physical activity have a lot to do with it, but he insists that there’s a genetic abnormality that causes most resistant high blood pressure problems. And he suggests a way, different from doctors, to deal with it. If it works, I won’t have to take medication (with unnatural side effects) for the rest of my life. What have I got to lose by trying it?
One of his key points is that our bodies were designed to strengthen under stress. “If we don’t load our bones, they don’t strengthen, if we don’t tear a muscle, it won’t grow, if you don’t challenge the immune system, it weakens.” I know these things are true. Brecka says to quit telling Gramma to stay indoors because it’s too hot or too cold, to quit eating at the first pang of hunger, to not exert herself because her heart pumps a little faster. He advocates adding some stress to our lives by getting out of our comfort zone. He suggests taking cold showers, doing breathwork (“an oxygenated cell is a healthy cell”), and earthing (also called grounding) to discharge the electrical current that builds up in the human body. Sounds a little kooky, but it’s worth exploring instead of medication, all of which might solve one problem, but creates others. If you think I’m crazy, just start paying attention to commercials for prescription medicine. The list of “May cause (fill in the blank for possible side effects)” is ridiculous. No thank you.
While none of those things mentioned above cost anything, I understand that Brecka is also selling something. I am careful to wade through the marketing hype, do my own research, and draw my own conclusions about what might be best for me about how my body works. He advocates a once-in-a-lifetime genetic test (cost – $599) so you can supplement (which his company also sells) ONLY for the things your body is deficient in. My initial research about that test raises a red flag.
Yesterday morning, in preparation for writing this blog, I watched this video where he spoke at a conference of real estate agents. In it he said “God is so much more powerful than modern medicine.” I believe that to be true. Then there’s my preexisting intense and acute distrust of big medicine and big pharma, big food, and the government. Finally, my healthy, active brain, with what I believe is a well-developed BS detector, is working to evaluate and extract what Brecka has to say that could be valuable to me.
But this seems absolutely true on its face–the more aggressively we pursue comfort, the faster we age.
Guilty.
Gulp…now, the question is, what am I going to do about it?
P.S. Today is primary voting day in Florida. What I’ve learned the past many years is that you have to look past the people you’re voting. Forget their personalities and personal failings. We all have them and not everyone likes us. Vote for the kind of world (even the close world like your county) you want to live in. Pay attention to not only what they say, but their track record, their authenticity, and their motivations when making your choice. And pray….because we really need God everywhere in America these days.
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