I hit the gym again today and took some time out to study Yiddish and thought about whether I was getting closer to where I want to be.
The young trainer asked me again if I wanted to pay him to help me train so I showed off and pumped out some sets on the tricep pulldown machine.
He told me he was impressed with the amount of weight I can move and the number of sets. I smiled and thanked him for his offer and said I still can’t afford the personal training.
Didn’t tell him I am not convinced he is impressed nor that it wouldn’t make a difference if I was. But I did consider for a moment what it would cost to hire him.
Considered it more seriously than he probably thinks I do because time in the gym correlates to the cost of living.
Genetics play a huge role in our lives and have a significant impact upon many things but that doesn’t mean I am going to let that dictate how and what I do.
Influence maybe, dictate never.
We’re officially less than two weeks from the 5th anniversary of my father’s death. If pancreatic cancer catches me I plan on being harder to take down, but first it has to catch me.
And though I may not have the perfect diet or be in the perfect shape I am far ahead of where my father was and that is worth something.
Sometimes You Put Things On Paper
Don’t know if the posts below say what I want them to say or not but I have an idea.
I’m Going To Tear Down The Wall
I know I have spelled it out precisely elsewhere, what I want to say, that is.
I also know that if I go read it again I will question whether I said it as well as I want to. I’ll wonder if I shouldn’t just shorten it.
Sometimes simple is best. A friend once asked for my help writing a letter to his lady friend and I wrote something like this.
“If you still love me and I still love you that is enough to start with.”
He told me he feared that didn’t spell things out and that it was too vague. I told him to give the reader space to fill the gaps and opportunity for discussion.
He didn’t think she would hear him and I asked what she would hear if he wrote 10,000 words.
“Start simply. She won’t miss what you are saying. If she is uncertain you won’t talk yourself into and out of a situation by saying something foolish.
If she has no interest you won’t have invested crazy amounts of time. Think of it like a work email, people stop reading after the second line.”
He asked me if that was really true, that people stop reading after the second line and I laughed.
“Someone I work with told me that is a fact, but if it is I have never seen where it comes from. I read the entire email. I read the entire newsletter.
It is how I stay ahead of the game, I read more than others.”
Don’t know if that is a scientific fact either, but I do know I consider education part of the cost of living.
This Is Truth
I haven’t read anything but Murakami’s quotes so I can’t comment on the entirety of his writing but the quote above, this is truth.
And so is the Steve Jobs quote.
Sometimes I look back upon the last 20 some years and question whether I should have made other choices. I am not one of those people who claim that I wouldn’t do things differently and that everything has worked out precisely as it should.
It is a nice sentiment and I want to believe in it, but I don’t.
Many things have turned out as they should and there are many things I wouldn’t change. Many things I wouldn’t do differently, maybe most things.
But if I could go back would I change some stuff?
Sure thing and I don’t feel badly writing it. If you could go back and do some things differently based upon the knowledge you have now there is no reason not to.
Maybe things wouldn’t work out as well as you hope. Maybe they wouldn’t be better, but than again, maybe they would.
Given that we can’t go back it doesn’t matter so that is just a mental chess game that offers limited utility.
We can only go forward and do our best to make smart choices. That is another cost of living.
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