While visiting my mom in Tucson and using her car for an errand, a handicap placard in the center console caught my eye. Handicapped? My mom wasn’t handicapped. Upon returning to her house I asked her why she had a handicapped placard. Her response was so that she could park in the front spots so she didn't have to walk very far. I was incensed. “Mom, you’re not handicapped, you’re overweight. That’s not handicapped!”
To give you a picture of my mom at the time, she was in her early seventies, in generally good health and walking without any physical assistance. She did not have debilitating arthritis—some stiffness and aches, perhaps, but nothing more. She was not suffering from any diseases. No diabetes. No heart issues. Maybe high cholesterol. What she did have, however, was a lifelong weight issue, and movement was becoming a challenge. She had stepped onto life’s slippery, easy slope and I could see where she was sliding.
The next time I visited her, she had a 6” platform (custom made) under her recliner so that it was easier for her to get up and numerous other “helpers” around the house, such as the long mechanical claw to pick something up off the floor and an elevated dishwasher. She didn’t fully close cabinet doors so she wouldn’t have to pull them open. Additionally, because she watched hours of TV and aided by an easy-button-obsessed culture, she had created an environment around her recliner where most everything she needed for enjoyable viewing was within arm's reach. Good grief!
Fast forward 10 years to when she moved in with my family so we could care for her. In We Are Our Parents Keepers, I wrote about how the pernicious cycle of non-movement had set the course for the rest of her life. Now she couldn’t walk without her walker, her posture was permanently bent over, and she could barely lift her feet to walk. All of the easy paths my mom had been given didn’t actually make life easier; they weakened her and made life exponentially harder.
A tale of two women
Coincidentally, about 10 years earlier, I had a contrasting case study in aging with our dear friend Lucille, whom I wrote about in Lessons From a Great Lady. Lucille had many health matters, including an arrhythmic heart that lead to open heart surgery for a valve replacement and some sort of issue with her feet that made it difficult for her to wear shoes. Despite her physical limitations, she never took the easy route and powered through obstacles. In fact, Andrea and I would often chastise her for doing more than she should, such as climbing precarious ladders to reach the top shelf or endeavoring to pull garbage cans up a steep driveway—she once fell (hard) doing this and rolled all the way back down—well into her 90s! She was proof positive the body at motion, stays in motion.
The less you do, the less you are able to do
Fr. Mike Schmidt touched on this issue in “Full Range of Motion.” He quoted an article that said every daily functional movement must be maintained for independent living, lest we become susceptible to joint dysfunction and disease. “You have to go through the motions, to be able to keep the motions.” He further referenced Ben Patrick, known to his 1.8 million Instagram followers as the “Knees Over Toes Guy.” Eschewing conventional wisdom, Ben overcame debilitating knee and shin pain, as well as subsequent major surgeries, through his transformational strategy based on progressive overload, methodically building to a full range of motion. He went from being barely able to walk to an astonishing 42” standing vertical jump today. He even has his mom doing backward walking routines for—as he says— bulletproof knees.
This had me reflecting on my mom and Lucille. I have long ruminated over the irony that they both lived to the same age of 96, yet the far-reaching repercussions of their individual choices created stark differences in their quality of life. I believe there are preconceived notions of what we are able to do as we age, and if we fall in line with these ill-conceived ideas by gladly accepting all the easy paths offered, we make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because my mom stopped pulling open the cabinet door, she no longer could pull the door open. And the cycle began.
Built for hard
However, the mind guides the body. I was struck by a story that Michael Easter, author of The Comfort Crisis, relayed on The Drive podcast with Dr. Peter Attia, about going on a very physically taxing hunting expedition in the remote backcountry with limited provisions. “Roughing it” doesn’t come close to describing the mentally and physically grueling experience. In the midst of it, he had second thoughts about what he had gotten himself into. However, once he returned, he was surprised to find himself unexpectedly energized and reinvigorated.
He attributed this reaction to evolution: we were built for the hard tasks in life. It’s embedded deep in our DNA. When we rise to meet physical, intellectual and emotional challenges, is when we truly thrive—not just survive.
This got me thinking long and hard about longevity, and finally codified why I have such a visceral aversion to the easy path. My epiphany? Short-term comfort not only prevents long-term gains, but can also do great harm in the process. It’s in our genetic code: challenges exercise both our mental resiliency and our physical muscles, and we need both to be strong to live fully as we age. Now, I see challenges as an integral component of overall strength training, helping to keep us strong and durable.
The choice is ours
My firsthand witness of two polar opposite aging processes, each with very different results, has influenced me greatly. Both ladies had the same lifespan, but their health-span and quality of life could hardly have been more dissimilar. In the last decade of life, sadly my mom was sidelined, while Lucille participated fully. I understand that we each have innate traits that drive many of our decisions, nevertheless, I believe with a strong desire to do so, we can control them and make better choices with meaningful impact.
Several months ago I took the “ass to the grass” challenge, which is a full squat so your rear basically touches the ground. I couldn’t do it. I was shocked (and dismayed) because I thought I was maintaining my flexibility fairly well. This did not sit well with me. Every day since then, I’ve worked at doing a full squat. At first, I had to hold on to a piece of furniture so as not to fall backward. Then I progressed to holding onto a light kettlebell as a counterweight. Now, proudly, I can squat down to the ground and get up on my own.
Around the same time, I noticed my feet hurt when I first got out of bed in the morning. They were very stiff and I would step very gingerly…I couldn’t wait to get into my comfy, soft, cushy slippers. But then it dawned on me, my feet were stiffening because they weren’t getting a full range of motion. The synovial fluid that lubricates the joints wasn’t being given a chance to move around and do its job because my feet were in rigid shoes all day and not flexing. So I started to go barefoot for at least an hour first thing out of bed. Wow, what an incredible difference this has made! My feet are no longer stiff or in pain. At home, I go barefoot as much as possible and I’m researching a few barefoot shoe brands for walking shoes. (Stay tuned!)
These life choices extend to our minds and souls as well. Admittedly for many years, I’ve not been much of a reader, but I’m making a very concerted effort to read more…much like my dear friend Lucille, who scoured the paper every morning. I’m striving to heighten my level of comprehension and deepen my vocabulary to keep the brain’s neuroreceptors functioning and pliable. It’s a bit of a challenge for me, but I’ve assembled a stack of books to tackle in the evenings as I wind down, and I have to admit—I’m actually enjoying it quite a bit.
Face the wind
Interestingly, when birds fly for pleasure, they go with the wind. But if the bird senses danger, it turns to face the wind in order to rise higher. Every day, we are faced with our own physical and mental winds—some tiny, some huge—and we have a choice to continue to get swept along the easy path or to face the wind to rise above. No matter how insignificant they may seem, don’t take the easiest paths that ultimately leads to the hardest roads.
Push through and rise higher to live well, age great.
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