PUSH YOUR ENVELOPE FOR PROOF

Uncle Drew via www.notey.com

Go outside the box and push your envelope. Push it real good.

Too often baby boomers take the good advice of slowing down, like take time to smell the roses.

It’s good advice because we’re not the proverbial spring chicken anymore, but it doesn’t mean crawl into a hole and die.

When is the last time you rock and rolled all night, and partied every day?

Boomers know that drill. Not all wear and tear show up on Faces of Meth. Sometimes it’s the after effects of a party lifestyle.

Eventually we get to the point of, “I don’t do that anymore.”

Say it often and you end up not doing anything anymore, but how do you know when enough is enough?

Lance Romance works his babe magnet magic year in and year out with a succession of women with low enough self-esteem to think a date with him might be just the deal they’ve been waiting for.

Push your envelope hard enough and these things happen. That it doesn’t work out any better is expected. If you don’t sail off into an Oregon cloud bank together, start over tomorrow.

How many start overs do we get? As many as we need. Or as many as you can stand.

Sports people hone their skills to compete with the best of the best. For sixty year olds that might mean shooting free throws on a basketball court better than the worst in the NBA.

Think of it as Hack A Boomer.

The next time you see a sixty year old suit up will be the first, but part of the game can still make you feel like the scrub you used to be.

Get better, boomer.

For the strong set, the aging lifters, set the bar at 225 and push your envelope. That’s two forty five pound plates on either side of the bench bar, the same weight the NFL uses to test new players in the draft.

Lift it once and you’re in The League.

Mature men and women are beyond the juvenile waste of time they call sports. Some of them call it, “a bunch of adults playing grab-ass.”

Who ever wants to be that mature?

Think like that and you’ll never push your envelope.

Still, we like measuring ourselves against the best. For example, if you have a complicated yard that swings out of control once a year and you hire a landscape crew, you’ve seen their work.

They are skilled and fast and never stop. They know their job, the others’ job, and it all meshes like classical ballet.

You watch, you pay, and you wonder if you could still join the crew and keep up. You know, make the team.

Give it a shot, boomer. Start slow to warm up, then jump in when you see one of the crew collect a load to lift and carry to the trailer. It’s your crap, it’s your turn to carry when you push your envelope.

So work at a pace consistent with the crew. Help out and pitch in. Give them time to do the stuff you’re afraid of, like pruning without killing.

Keep after it as long as you can, or as long as the crew works your yard.

Afterward, how do you know if you still have it, if you made the team? Easy.

Ask the crew chief if, by what they’ve seen you do, they would hire you for their crew.

A yes answer is life affirming. A no answer? Tell them thank you, then get in better shape for another try-out.

Either way, you’re still scratching a check. And while you’ve got the checkbook out, remember the sign you saw at your last mechanic’s garage:

“Hourly rate $95. Hourly rate with your help, $125.”