Author: Bob McMillan

Country Music legend Mel Tillis died over the weekend. I’m not a great fan of country music but I can enjoy some of the good stuff, particularly if it’s Johnny, Willie or Waylon. Mel Tillis was a country music star who, in his later years formed a group with other legends called “Old Dogs”, consisting of himself, Waylon Jennings, Bobby Bare and Jerry Reed. One of their great songs was written by Shel Silverstein the author, poet and sometimes songwriter.

I guess I have to concede that no matter what you do, how well you take care of your body, no matter what you eat, and do all the “stuff” that is advertised and promoted to give you better health and well being, you are: “Still Gonna Die”. That’s not an exciting prospect, but the way it’s put in this song is hilarious.

Go to this link and enjoy this classic song, written by Shel Silverstein and sung by the Old Dogs.   It starts with a short narrative, which I quote below, and then moves quickly into the song. Enjoy!

“So you’re takin’ better care of your body ,
Becoming more aware of your body.
Responding to your body’s needs.
Everything you hear and read about
Diets and nutrition and sleeping positions
and detoxifying your system and buying machines
that they advertise to help you exercise.”

“Still Gonna Die” written by Shel Silverstein.  Recorded by the Old Dogs (Waylon Jennings, Mel Tillis, Bobby Bare and Jerry Reed) on the 1998 album “old Dogs Vol. 2”

So, yes you’re Still Gonna Die, eventually, but you’re more likely to live a lot longer, live a lot healthier and experience a fuller life if you actually do take better care of your body and become more aware, and do a few of the other things mentioned in the lyrics.

Ya gotta love it! I hope you enjoy it — I sure did. Rest in peace, Mel Tillis.

Thank you for reading.

How committed are you to yourself, and to living a long healthy life? How committed are you to maintaining your personal independence and staying self-reliant for the rest of your life? Those are some questions you should be asking yourself as you start to get older.

Commitment is not the same as a “resolution” as in New Year’s Resolution. How do those usually work out? Commitment is a burning desire and intent, followed by continual execution with no excuses or BS.

“There is a difference between interest and commitment. When you are interested in doing something, you do it only when circumstances permit. When you are committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.”    — Unknown.

Most people are perfectly aware of what they need to do. Pretty much anyone who is awake knows that they should be moving their bodies, eating healthy foods and getting plenty of rest and sleep. And not for just a few days — how about forever.

In their book, Younger Next Year, authors Chris Crowley and the late Dr. Harry Lodge listed a few rules for this. They called them, Harry’s Rules. There are seven of them. Here are four:

1. Exercise six days a week for the rest of your life.
2. Do serious aerobic exercise four days a week for the rest of your life.
3. Do serious strength training, with weights, two days a week for the rest of your life.
4. Quit eating crap!

That’s quite a commitment. It’s probably more than you need, but you should commit to doing something along those lines if you want to continue to stay upright and independent.

There are too many excuses and you’ve heard them all before: Not enough time. Too old. I’ll start later. I just can’t make myself do it. And a thousand others.

But there is no real excuse. You either make a commitment to yourself — or you don’t.

How to commit? Decide what you want. Visualize how you want to look, feel and be. Include an emotional component in that visualization so that you feel it internally, as well as see it. Set a goal for yourself. Turn that goal into an positive affirmation and write it down. Make a plan how to get there. EXECUTE THE PLAN and don’t look back. No excuses

I exercise between 50 minutes to an hour most mornings. I made that commitment to myself almost eight years ago. I’ve kept it. Why? I want to feel good and be healthy, fit and independent the rest of my life. I keep a record of my exercises. I think that helps me with the discipline. I don’t like to see empty pages in the log book. I even exercise in hotel rooms. You don’t need to be quite as obsessed about it as I am.

Besides, I can’t write a blog, speak about it and do workshops on the subject without doing it myself.

The same with food. Everyone who opens their eyes in the morning knows what they should not be stuffing in their mouth. But that doesn’t seem to make a difference. We have a lot of overweight and unhealthy eaters in our midst. It’s an individual matter of personal responsibility. It’s a function of your own attitude and yes, self-discipline (dare I use that word?). There are about ten zillion eating plans (diets) to choose from.  The best ones tell you to stay away from sugar and processed foods, and eat plenty of fruits and vegetables. That’s the one I adhere to. It works for me.

Commit to it. Don’t let anything stop you from sticking with healthy eating. Make a menu on Sunday night and pretty well stick with it during the week. You don’t have to wrangle over what to eat each night. It’s pretty easy to commit to that.

I’ll add this. Commitment is internal. Commitment is personal. You can commit to someone else that you will execute, but that doesn’t mean much if you don’t make a real commitment to yourself.

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.”    — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Begin now — today. Make good health, fitness and personal energy a personal priority and an ongoing reality. Commit to it.

Thank you for reading.

The lead sentence of an article in today’s Washington, DC’s favorite “newspaper”, The Washington Post, goes like this: “What can be done about negative stereotypes that portray older adults as out of touch, useless, feeble, incompetent, pitiful and irrelevant?”  In all fairness to the Washington Post, the article was produced independently by Kaiser Health News, an “editorially independent news service” of the Kaiser Family foundation, and found its way into today’s Health and Science Section. The byline shows Judith Graham as the writer.

The long, three column article reiterates all those stereotypes that we can easily fight off if we simply take care of ourselves in ways I have written about for the last 211 weeks. Obviously, the problem is both a mental and physical one. A few months ago, I referred to a passage from Maxwell Maltz’s well known book, Psycho-Cybernetics where he suggested that we could “think ourselves old”, simply by personally accepting those very perceptions about aging, as true. So, think young.

Physically, we can avoid many of the outward characteristics of aging by exercise, eating right, getting plenty of rest and sleep, and standing with be best posture we are capable of, so we look, feel and act alive and well.

Here’s an example from the article. The Chief medical officer for AARP Services had been hit by a car and after undergoing a long and painful rehab, found that strangers would treat her as helpless because she was limping and using a cane. Hmm, does this mean that they would open a door for her, or maybe offer to help her in some other way. Anyhow, she says that she would come home feeling terrible about herself because of the way she was treated. Really? Their Chief Medical Officer?

Hmm. Seems to me that the appropriate thing to do would be to say “thank you” to whoever tried to help her, and go home feeling grateful that someone made the effort.  Ah, but maybe that’s just our AARP in action. Seems I’ve written about their attitude about “ageism” before. I think that maybe an institutional attitude makeover may be in order.

A point I will make here is that we are as old as we allow ourselves to be.  Most of the stereotypes associated with aging can be delayed or eliminated altogether if we make the effort to take care of ourselves and take responsibility for our own health and fitness. Yes we get older. Yes some of us are affected by bone and muscle weakening disease — some of which may be avoided by the remedies suggested above. Sometimes we find ourselves using a cane or even a walker. You’re not a victim of other people’s perceptions — as long as you don’t let yourself be one.

Most of the rest of the article was about what others can do to change the way they perceive older adults and the way we respond to it.  It seems to make us the victims of the way others think about us. Are you kidding me?

What’s far more important is the way we perceive ourselves and what we are doing for ourselves to eliminate the things that go into making up those stereotypes in the first place. It all starts with the way we’re thinking and is followed by the way we move, eat, breathe, rest, and how we carry ourselves.

NOTE: The planned article for today about the depth of our personal commitment to our own health and well being as we get older, will appear next week. If we make a strong commitment to our own health, we won’t ever need to feel like the victim of anyone’s perception of us, and we won’t need to give a darn about those perceptions anyway.

Thank you for reading.