Life Lessons From Recent Medical Scare

Now that I’m on the mend I’ve had time to reflect on my recent medical escapade and see what I can learn from it. Here are a few things that spring to mind.

• Be careful what you wish for- A couple of days before my severe vertigo incident, I remember thinking to myself that my blog was getting boring and I needed some more fuel for it!
• You’re not in control as much as you think you are– I had the weeks leading up to my birthday in January planned out in exquisite detail. Needless to say that plan is out the window now. I remember hearing the saying somewhere that “when we make plans, the universe laughs” (I’m sure various cultures have their own versions of a saying like this).

• Keep Training Balanced– The purpose of the training I do is healthy aging. I’ve discussed previously that I think there are multiple aspects of this. Physical training is only one part, there are also nutrition and mental and spirituals aspects. Physical is the most fun for me so I sometimes emphasize it and neglect other aspects. Further, aerobics is the part of training I enjoy most so I can overemphasize it and underemphasize things like strength, flexibility, and balance training. And I can get hung up on some sort of performance goal rather than putting health first. Lately I had been drifting towards “ultraendurance” goals, for example I went for a five hour bike ride the day before my vertigo issue. There is nothing wrong with something like that once in a while, as long as I also pay enough attention to the other components of a healthy aging plan.