December Newsletter Article...

Grow, or You will Shrink…
By Lanny Keithley

Life can throw many things at you. What was reality yesterday does not exist today. In fact, today may be a completely new reality for you from all of your past. Traumatic events and medical procedures are the most common life changing events, but there are many other things that can change your life forever, on a moment’s notice. Since you are reading this article, you have probably been through some of these life changing events and are dealing with their effects.

Things that you were capable of being able to do yesterday may be gone forever. Friends and/or family members may be gone. Some of the things that made up your perception of what you are may no longer be possible to do. All of these things will happen to you many times during your life. The bottom line is that there is no status quo in reality. Reality only exists for a moment and is replaced with the next moment of reality and so on as long as you live. Every moment is different and based on the last moment. The next moment will be based on what is happening right now.

Every day you wake up really is the beginning of the rest of your life. And, if viewed and dealt with as such, can make your life much more enjoyable for you and all those around you, which brings us to the subject of this article…

Whatever you are today is the total of all the stuff you have learned and experienced in your life. And, that will be true tomorrow and for every new day you live. You only have one viable option to take in proceeding with your life. That is to seek out knowledge and learn from experience - to grow. Any other path will only lead to a degradation of all that you consider life to be. It may linger for some time, or be quick, but it will happen. There is no such thing as just staying the same.

The other side of growing is dealing with “reality” and being able to accept it for what it is – Reality. The dictionary defines reality as – “actual being or existence, as opposed to an imaginary, idealized or false nature”. When you are not accepting and/or living your “reality”, you can expend vast amounts of energy that, instead of helping your growth, will only accelerate your decline. What you were in the past, whether real or imagined, does not exist now - and there is no way you can make it, or will it, to exist now. You are what you are right now .

I think most folks can agree with most of what I am saying as being true. But, with those that have significant problems with dealing with reality, there are areas of their life that they just cannot accept and are the root cause of their problems with it.

Billions of dollars are spent each year searching for regained youth and trying to stop the progression of aging. And, for most of us, we will look back on this moment that we hate now, sometime in the future, as being a very good time in our lives.

Since the beginning of time, people from most cultures have searched for the “Fountain of Youth” to stop the ravages of age from taking its toll on our bodies. The “to keep us young and to never grow old” sales pitch will be used until the solution is finally found or technologically developed. Until then, not accepting your reality is a much bigger problem. Besides all the costs and effort involved in this search, the biggest problem with this lack of acceptance with reality is in what it does to your life.

While remembering the past is positive and good, using it to define and limit your current life is very unhealthy. The past is the past and as such, is history. No matter how good or bad it was, it will never exist again. You cannot grow and experience new things if you spend all your time thinking of the past. Preoccupation on the past can also build walls inside that can limit your thought processes in the future – keeping you boxed into your non-existent past.

On the other hand, it is good to use your past as a basis for growth, as that experience is very valuable in knowing what did or didn’t work for you before. If you don’t let go of old constraints and walls you built up in the past, you will have to re-experience old efforts to learn their values to you again.

It is widely known that many of the diseases and afflictions that are considered to be “old” age related can be limited or stopped by continuing to be active and keep doing things we consider to be “young” oriented. In recent articles, I have been offering techniques to help keep you younger and more active.

First, I presented meditation as a tool that will keep your mind and thought processes active. I would recommend that, in addition to the meditation, you pickup habits and games that require mental challenges. Whether that is playing cards, working on puzzles, or any number of activities that require creative thought. This will also help in every daily task you do.

Then, last month, I recommended yoga as a way you could keep your physical body in shape and regain many abilities and capabilities you perceive as youthful. Yoga is a great exercise system that everybody can do at their pace and level, and grow with it as their bodies change.

Both of these recommendations have worked for me and many others. But, there are many other mental and physical exercise and growth systems out there and most of them will work for you if you just do them. The point here is that you need to keep your mind and body active and going, or it will shrink and you will not like the results.

I have been doing the SUDUKU puzzle in the paper every day for a couple of years now. It is challenging to me and I like them. The other day I found a little electronic SUDUKU game at Wal-Mart and I got it. I keep it in my jacket pocket and anytime I now have some spare time, waiting for something or whatever, I pull out the little game and start playing it. It keeps me active and also really helps to chew up all the time I have to wait for this or that. That little game works for me. Your task is finding something that works for you…

Consider new ideas and concepts that will help you to grow and expand. Involve your friends and family if possible to keep up your interaction with others. Every day of your future is what you make of it – Are you Growing or are you Shrinking?