FOUNDATION WORK, BETTER BALANCE, STAND UP

Thomas Wolfe’s Bronzed Brogans. Image via DG camera.

Even giants need good balance.

You’ve heard the saying “You can’t know someone until you’ve walked in their shoes.”

Or their footsteps.

Take their path.

They all mean the same thing: Your feet. On the ground.

No matter what the reason, your feet on the ground defines you.

From barefooting to mountain climbing boots, if your feet are on the ground you’re headed somewhere.

Where? The place where your mental and physical characteristics improve.

Feet are the foundation. Footings are key.

If you spend more time on your seat than your feet, then the foundation weakens.

The load grows heavier, too heavy for the foundation to support. Obesity, fallen arches, energy loss. Not the path less traveled at all.

Once you start rolling down that road, history kicks in. Your history.

Feelings fade deeper into the past when you remember what you used to do.

Balance? What’s that?

“I had handles on the basketball court once. My nickname was Meadowlark.”

Now you can’t jump enough to touch the net.

“I used to lift weights. It was the fountain of youth at first.”

Now you lift a fork.

“I used to do things with friends. We had a smart crowd bombing around town.”

Now your friends are the charge nurse at the clinic check-in, the pharmacist filling your prescriptions, and the counselor at the Jenny Craig storefront.

You bond with them because you see them more often than anyone else.

Foundation work is hard and dirty. It’s uncomfortable.

But balance is a life saver.

Go ahead and stand up to start. Move one foot. Now the other.

Repeat.

Let me know how it works out.

After a nice walk, find your desk and follow the same routine to write.

One word.

Then another.

Just do it. No finish line. The things you’ve heard from Nike are real. They just sound like ad talk, but they’re messages to pay attention to.

Ask yourself how you’d do, what you’d do, if it all went away.

Through no fault of your own, you can’t step up, speak up. Now what?

Boomers are at that age where we’ve seen it and wondered, “If that was me?”

Would you have the grace and balance to make it look easy?

Instead, remember what Momma said: “Stand up straight and act like you know what you’re doing.”

About those sleds in the top image? Got to be about size sixteen by my reckoning.