Don’t Call Me Amazing
Because I’m 80 Years Old And I Can Walk Across The Room and Text My Bestie At The Same Time
I’ve been hearing it a lot lately. People call me amazing because I can do a two-minute plank. They tell me I’m an inspiration because I fantasize about sex. They tell me they want to be like me when they grow up because I drop F-bombs with equanimity.
As if those things are exceptional accomplishments for a healthy human being my age. If you call me amazing because I can do any of those things, you sell yourself short and underestimate the power of the elderly.
Don’t get me wrong. I love a nice compliment. I’m enough of a narcissist to like the attention. But calling me amazing because I started doing a fifteen-second plank several months ago, thinking it would kill me by the time the timer went off is like calling a baby amazing because she has taken her first tentative steps. I just increased it by a second or two every few days. In a couple of months, I was up to a minute, then Boom! A month later, two minutes. Physics and physiology at work.
My accomplishment was no more amazing than a child learning to walk, which is the normal process of muscles, nerves, and bones developing to the point where the child is ready to put one foot in front of the other. It’s delightful…
