Too Late to Stop Moving

A friend of mine that I used to work with was telling me about her grandfather one day. He still lives back in the Old Country. He was in his late 80’s or early 90’s when she told me this, and still lived by himself. Impressive!

She said he still chopped wood to heat his home. Not: he has a subscription to a wood chopping service to heat his home. She meant he still chops his own wood with his own personal axe and then carries it into his house so that he can make fires in the wood-burning stove during the winter months.

My first reaction was, “Wow, that’s amazing! I hope when I’m that old I can still get around by myself and do stuff.” But the more I thought about it and heard about other people in their golden years who were still active, I had a different thought:

They can still do things like chop and carry wood in their 80’s and 90’s because they never stopped doing it. It’s way easier to maintain a !tness or activity level than to try to increase it as we get older. Another friend of mine who’s a ski bum said he was on a mountain and shared a lift with “an old guy” who looked like he was in his 70’s. My friend, recognizing a sage when he saw one, asked him if he had any advice and the gentleman replied, “Never miss a season.”

It might be a good idea to pick a few things you’d like to be able to do in your old age and make a habit of doing them. Hint: walking had better be one of them.