Good morning! I hope your day is off to a perfect start.
Have you ever had that feeling something is happening right under your nose, something sinister that you would never allow? It’s like parents smelling incense from a teenager’s room, or noticing that the bottle of vodka in the freezer is all of a sudden … you know, frozen. It’s almost like somebody is refilling it with water to keep you from knowing how much is gone.
That’s how I feel every morning when I look in my closet. It’s full of clothes that are a perfect fit for somebody who’s carrying around a bunch of extra weight. And judging by his fashion sense, he’s old, too. Like really old. There’s only one plausible explanation. I think my wife is having an affair.
Okay, before she reads this and smacks me in the head, I guess I should take that back. I know the clothes are mine, simply because they fit. Well, they used to. They’ve shrunk. Not in length, but in the waistline. How does that even work?
And when it comes to fashion, let me share a little story. Several years ago I had a part in a movie. It never saw the big screen, but it was fun going through the process. I played an older comedian who was mentoring a younger comedian. Right up until the scene where they found my body slumped over the table with a very real-looking bullet hole in my head.
As I was reading my lines the day before our first shoot, the wardrobe director asked if I knew where I could get my hands on a button-down sweater. You know, “Like the old men wear.” Yes, it was a low-budget film. That wasn’t the worst part. I had two sweaters just like that hanging in my closet. Right next to my powder-blue leisure suit.
It reminded me of the time when I went to the vision center for an eye exam. As I was trying on a pair of glasses with large squared lenses, a very attractive female clerk gently took them off my face and put them back on the rack. “We keep a few of these around for the old men. Let’s try something a little more fun.” Wham! A two-point shot and I didn’t even see it coming!
Age is one of those things that sneaks up on us. It happens while you’re sleeping. I offer that scientific observation based on the fact that my hair is no grayer at the end of the day than it is when I wake up, but every morning it seems a little less colorful than it was yesterday. And the problem is, the older I get, the more I sleep. Damn.
The same is true of weight. I know, there are people who can eat a single donut and say, “I feel bloated!” Yes, Karen, those extra 150 calories went straight to your gut. Everybody duck! The button on her pants may fly off at any moment. It could put an eye out. Seriously. I read it on Facebook!
Okay, there are days when we feel a little older and temporary bloating is a real thing. But the long-term trend is something we rarely notice until it becomes … well, noticeable. With women, age is easy to conceal. With men, it’s a little more obvious. Checkered shorts, black knee socks, and leather sandals? Give him a pair of wraparound sunglasses and send him to Golden Oaks.
Think back over your career. Were there times when you felt you just weren’t making any progress? You’d wake up each day and think, “Here we go again. Same stuff, different day.” Yet somewhere along the way, things changed. Odds are, you’re not still doing the same things you did when you first started working. You grew. It may have been slow, but here you are.
Now, think of your dreams – things you’ve been slowly working toward for several years. It’s hard to notice any real progress from one day to another, but when you look at where you were a month ago, or maybe a year ago, you’ve probably gotten closer, even if you weren’t trying as hard as you could have.
One of the hardest things about achieving long-term goals is the lack of noticeable results from one day to the next. It’s that way with savings, weight loss, education, muscle-conditioning, business-building, and just about anything else you can imagine. You may notice small gains over time, but it’s hard to see progress on a daily basis.
But the progress continues as long as you keep working at it. We barely notice each mile in a 1000-mile trip, but that doesn’t mean we’re not getting there. Just keep going. Do what you need to be doing, and stick with it. And one day when you least expect it, you’ll realize you’re just about there. Almost like magic.
That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!
© 2020 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved
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