If You Don’t Take Care of Your Body, Your Doctor Will

If You Don’t Take Care of Your Body, Your Doctor Will

If You Don’t Take Care of Your Body, Your Doctor Will

These words of wisdom were spoken by an inspirational 75-year-old man who I met on a hike recently. The truth of that statement hit home. Which is better, me taking care of my body, or my doctor taking care of it? The answer seems obvious, however, too often we wait until that doctor visit to take positive action. Let me share our encounter with Arun.

On this beautiful May morning, Evelyn and I were hiking the Bump & Grind Trail in Palm Desert, CA as we train for our Inca Trail hike to Machu Picchu in late August. We were keeping a nice pace, and fairly early in our hike, we passed a man who had bells on his hiking poles. We commented that we liked them and went on past. Evelyn challenged us to run up a stretch of incline, and we took off. As we got to the top of the incline we stopped to walk. We could hear the bells behind us, and Evelyn remarked “we need to get away from the bells”, indicating that we should pick up our pace. Well, clearly, our accelerated pace was no match for his pace, and he quickly caught up to us. We engaged in conversation, and he gave us that one liner, along with some other added inspiration.

He told us he was 75 years old, and he hikes every day. He climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro when he was 67. His words of encouragement included that we could do whatever we wanted and he took off back up the mountain. We had just been lapped by someone 20+ years older, and soon, Evelyn got her wish because we couldn’t hear the bells.

There are those people who cross your path, and there are those who cross your heart. We knew immediately that we needed to get a picture and tell him how inspirational he was … although at that moment, all we could see of him was a small figure in the distance.

On his way back down we met him again, asked his name and took the photo of the three of us. He was humble, funny and had an amazing outlook on life. He shared that his friends didn’t like that he climbed mountains because he gave their children ideas. I gave him a High5 for that!

Two lessons from this man that I wanted to share today. First, take care of your body or your doctor will. These are words to live by (literally). Live a High5 FIT Life (Focused Intentional Transformation). Second, be the kind of person that will make others want to learn your name, and take your picture, so they can tell the story of how inspired they were by you. Let them know you were here by your actions, not your words.

When you change your world, you change THE world! High5 Choices lead to High5 Moments to create your High5 Life!

PS: The bells on the hiking poles are for scaring away bears during his early morning hikes.