USE IT OR LOSE IT
… get a little bit better every day
Saturday June 7, 2014
My brain works.
Better than ever.
My problems, when they arrive, will be physical.
Not mental (fingers crossed, remembering my dad’s mind, intact till his end).
Mental health doesn’t peak or fade.
For many it deteriorates from disease.
Simply from atrophy for others.
Physical health/performance peaks at about seventeen for males; peaks mid-sixties for females (I say hopefully).
Use it, or lose it!
Athletes try – to get a little bit better every day.
Someone who is ill tries – to get a little bit better every day.
Someone who is slipping physically, or mentally tries – to get a little bit better every day.
Parts don’t work, aren’t as fast, strong or robust as they were. Muscles, hearing and eyesight fail – not because we haven’t been using them, but because we have.
Things wear out, don’t work as well – our machine needs regular use and lubrication.
Mentally?
Brains, as with bodies, aren’t much good if not nourished, aren’t flexible without regular exercise. I don’t mean walking your body around a golf course necessarily equates to brain-exercise. But it can. As surely any other pursuit of thinking, using and revealing our brain to ourselves and to others can be seen as brain exercise, brain activity.
Must go – meet with and do some training for some Toastmasters folks, then the gym, then cooking dinner for guests – my brain and body will get plenty of exercise today.
Gentlemen, in our minds, we are always seventeen.
Ladies, you are always seventeen in our minds …
We must hold to that belief – we must use it, or lose it, and try to get a little bit better every day.
Mark Kolke
197,360
column written/ published from Calgary
morning walk: 9C/48F, light chilly breeze from the north, sunny and peaceful. Gusta found too many smelly disgusting things in the grass, so we adventured on the sidewalk opposite – though my sore heel would have appreciated the softer path..
