Tag: potential

best years

I’m not sue if it’s because I think a lot, or because I’m approaching what most people consider to be mid-life (though I’m planning on living a long & healthy life, the length of which I shouldn’t be half way through yet) but I lend a bit of thought to when a person might ‘peak.’

Even as I write this, that feels like damning language, but it’s fair to say that once you reach a certain age, you won’t be able to perform to the same level as you once could. Typically this notion is cast upon athletes, which is something I can consider myself now (though not professional by any measure) but as years go by it gets cast over musicians and performers; as well, not being able to sing or perform to the level they could in their ‘prime.’

It’s most startling in athletes though. The thought that someone’s athletic potential in a given sport could come & go before the age of 25 years old (and that’s generous in some sports) is a hard thing to hear for me – someone who is a staunch late-bloomer in a number of ways. To spend the latter 3/4 of a century in the shadow of a mountain you once climbed is a dangerous existence, fraught with high-risk decisions making, if one does not re-examine their sights and focus on a new goal. There are too many cliche examples to mention.

Suffice to say, I couldn’t be happier to have become the late-bloomer I am. Being in my 40s and taking my creative career more seriously than ever has it’s daunting moments, for sure, but it beats the shit out of burning out early. A few years ago, I decided that I’m not finished doing what I do, and quite honestly I’ve been writing my best and most important lyrics ever since, and playing, performing, and composing better than ever – and that’s not even and objective statement. I am more technically proficient and intentional than ever before.

I know that’s a mouthful – but the important part was that I decided to level-up. My history is one of massive and lengthy self-doubt and fear of success before I decided to clean up my act – but as one once so poignantly stated: “If one desires to climb the Ziggurat, one must take the first step.”

So the real question isn’t about the past at all.
The real question to ask is: Are your best years behind you?

Being a first round NHL draft pick at 19 years old, or being a self-medicated & socially lubricated songwriter navigating a local music scene in a medium-sized city is completely irrelevant at the age of 40 years old, because you can’t go back and change it no matter how you feel about it.

You can’t live there.
You can’t live there any more than you can live in the future where you’re a wild & unbridled success… you can picture both the future and the past, and use them to guide your decisions today, but you have to live here in the present.

Only fear can live in the past.
Only doubt can live in the future.
But success and potential, inspiration and discipline – those live here and now.

I can say definitively… My best years are in front of me.

Check out the new podcast I was recently interviewed for! Pillars of Creation is a new podcast dedicated to creators, by creators, for creators, and is definitely worth a like & a follow & a subscribe!

finding the edges

It’s too easy to live a life of leisure; to enjoy the fruits of your labor without any plan to return to work. As humans, we’re predisposed to this, likely due to some evolutionary trait that permitted us to be content with a certain set of comfortable circumstances. This is why I’ve slowly fallen in love with making a plan. “Finding the edges” is a crucial part of this, because we need to know what the limitations of our capabilities are if we’re going to push or stretch them, and avoid complacency.

As I round out the first couple of months of 2023, I am ultimately content with my progress as it pertains to physical fitness (despite some inevitable frustration with the speed of that progress, but hey!). The reason I am content with my progress is because it IS progress, and in order to feel the way I want to feel, I need to be pushing forward.

I’m not opposed to rest & recovery. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about personal challenges within my vocation. I’m talking about writing better, lifting heavier, playing guitar more proficiently, helping my contemporaries at work to deal with challenging situations and learning from them. I’m at my best when I’m actively engaged in what I am doing and who I am with, and I wager that you’re no different.

I’ve learned that nobody wants to see a ‘pretty good’ rock & roll band, they want to see a great rock & roll band – a truly exceptional rock & roll band, for that matter. In the same way, my girlfriend doesn’t want to have a conversation with me when I am distracted by a TV show or a social media post; not when she could have an honest, engaging discussion with me – she wants to be reminded that she’s more important than whatever content I am consuming.

It’s too easy to live a life of leisure; to enjoy the fruits of your labor without any plan to return to work. As humans, we’re predisposed to this, likely due to some evolutionary trait that permitted us to be content with a certain set of comfortable circumstances. Personally; and I know this is common to many people – I’m happy as a clam being on vacation, but there IS a point at which lazing about reaches it’s limit, and the need to accomplish something kicks in. This is why I’ve gradually fallen in love with making a plan. “Finding the edges” is a crucial part of this, because we need to know what the limitations of our capabilities are, particularly if we’re going to push or stretch them and avoid complacency.

Complacency is what happens when we stop rising to meet new challenges and succumb to the comforts of life. We accept the reality with which we’re presented and have a hard time seeing beyond it because we’ve stopped looking. For many people, this is retirement, but for most of us it means giving in to a lifestyle that isn’t necessarily easy, but that we’ve decided we’re okay navigating. This might look like a paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle… it might look like retirement… or it might look like sleeping in a ravine in a makeshift tent and spending your day scheming to get a fix to numb your pain.

We all share this humanity, and some compassion is required in order to navigate these waters… but maybe that’s a post for another day.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Plans change. They can change and they will change – and it’s only when there is no plan that change is particularly hard or uncomfortable.

Training this week has been reasonably solid. My work schedule has changed a bit, and with the advent of subscribing to a Monday-Friday work schedule for the first time in over a decade, a few regularly occurring things on the calendar have been shuffled out of necessity.

If anything, my workouts are longer somehow. Monday (which I took off this week w/ the Family Day long weekend), as well as Thursday and Saturday are long endurance days. A solid 60 – 75 minutes of running. Tuesday and Friday are weight lifting days, as they historically have been, but with an endurance component as well, which is divvied up between the stair-climber, the stationary bike, the rowing machine, and the tank. Wednesday & Sunday are rest days.

I’m also making an effort to spend some time stretching and doing some isolated core work on a gym mat at the end of each of the 5 sessions. I’m sure I will reap the rewards of that in time, but for the moment I’m just trying to make sure I get it done.

This should get me into outdoor running season, but things are constantly changing and fine-tuning. It’s a process.