A Letter to My (Younger) Self
Trisha Yearwood

Dear Trisha,

I've got something to say to you, and I hope you will listen with an open heart.  Don't be so worried about what everybody else thinks of you, and don't think your happiness depends on someone else.  I want you to just trust yourself.  Trust that if you take care of yourself on the inside, follow your instincts, and let yourself evolve naturally, your potential for happiness will be so much greater.

You probably don't think you need to hear this.  Mama and Daddy brought you up to be independent, intelligent, and educated.  And you are.  I'm proud of the way you've stuck with your music, even though the odds were against you.  But there's another part of you that's less independent.  You're hearing everyone ask, "When are you going to get married?"  The friends who didn't tie the knot right out of high school are doing it now, after college.  Somewhere inside you, you think that's the way it's supposed to be.

There are going to be times when your gut instinct is telling you something isn't right, and you're going to go ahead with it anyway.  If you keep that up, I know exactly what's going to happen.  In about a year, you'll be standing in the back of a church with Daddy, getting ready to walk down the aisle.  Daddy's going to say, jokingly, "We can duck out the back door if you want to."  You won't dare tell him that's what you want to do.

Everybody will be sitting there, everything will have been paid for, and there will be a ton of cake to eat.  You'll be afraid of the embarrassment of calling it off.  And so you'll get married--for all the wrong reasons--to a wonderful guy.

There's another way of living, and it has brought me a sense of peace that I want you to have.  Know that God has a plan for your life.  Turn your life over to him every day.  Stop looking outside yourself for validation and approval--you're letting other people define your happiness.  Instead of trying so hard to manipulate life, take care of yourself on the inside.  Then all of those other attributes you're so desperately seeking will find you naturally.

Love,
Your forty-two-year-old future self
  

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Eyes Wide Open
tom walsh

Living with Energy

I think that one of the things that frustrates me about being with adults is the way that they seem to live their lives without much energy at all.  You see this very clearly at a beach or at a park where families are having picnics--the kids are running around, enjoying themselves, enjoying the feel of the air on their skin and the grass or sand under their feet as they run and play and throw balls and such.  The adults, on the other hand, are sitting.  And talking, maybe, or reading.  And when the day's over, they leave the place they've been not having done anything that they couldn't have done at home, on their couches.

Somehow or another, adults seem to feel that if they use up too much of their energy, they're going to run out of it.  So in situations in which they have the opportunity to let loose and enjoy their physical gifts--the ability to run, to walk, to play--they pass those up and stick to the non-physical pursuits that don't require them to use and exercise the wonderful bodies that they've been given.  If I save my energy here, they seem to be saying to themselves, I won't wear down later in the week.

Or, on the other hand, they may be saying that since they've had such a hard week at the office, they need to rest their bodies.

The problem is that nothing could be further from the truth--after a busy week at the office, there really is nothing better for the mind, body, and spirit than some stimulating physical activity.  Physical activity helps the mind and body in many ways, not the least of which is through the release of chemicals and endorphins that stimulate the mind and body, actually raising our energy levels rather than depleting them.  So while you might think that playing catch with someone is going to wear you out more, the chances are that doing so will provide you with more energy and actually relax you more than it will stress you out.

Kids seem to know this instinctively.  They know that they have bodies that are capable of many things, and they don't waste time wondering about their bodies' limits.  They haven't fooled themselves into thinking that sitting around and talking somehow will make them more rested, more energetic.  They know that the best thing that they can do for their energy levels is to use their bodies, to stimulate the necessary chemicals and to use their muscles and tendons and to push their hearts and lungs to high levels of performance, because doing so helps all of those systems to improve their health and performance.

Not doing so, on the other hand, causes those systems to weaken, and their performance suffers significantly.

My wife and I are working as camp hosts at a campground this summer, and the typical trends are very evident as we watch the campers--the kids get up and play and ride their bikes and run around, while the adults pull a chair up to the fire and sit there all day long.  There are, of course, exceptions on both sides, but for the most part the situation keeps repeating itself.  People have come to a beautiful mountain lake to spend a few days, and they end up sitting in a chair almost the whole day long.  Their bodies, though, weren't made to do such a thing--their bodies were made to do what the kids are doing.

When do we lose the urge to use our bodies as they were designed to be used?  When do we start craving ease and comfort over healthy activity?  When do we start to prefer sitting around and talking to other adults over playing fun games that challenged our imaginations and that helped to keep us physically fit?

You have choices to make with your body.  Most of us, though, make those choices based more on expediency and comfort rather than on practicality.  If we know that a healthy body is one of the most important keys to living a full and happy life, then why is it that we so often choose to do things that not only don't help our body, but that actually can cause it harm?  In the case of my body, the kids are my best role models--I want to try always to choose the activities that will help me to stay healthy, rather than the activities that will contribute to the continuing loss of good health.

In your life, it's definitely your decision, and it may be worth a look at what the kids are doing if you want to find ways to maintain your health in very positive ways.  Kids know what they're doing, and we'd do well to learn from them.