“I didn’t have time for that.” This is what my then 93-year-old grandpa told me as we took a trip down highway 5 to a strength and conditioning workshop in Orange county. This is a phrase that a lot of us say when our jobs, stress, and laziness get in the way of taking care of ourselves. However, what if this phrase was used in a different context?
Being confined in a small car with my grandfather for 9 hours sparked some hidden treasures of information that I still hold dear to this day. As we drove through the barren wasteland of Taft County before ascending the Grape Vine, the landscape reminiscent to that of a Mad Max movie left a void for conversations to be had between the two of us. We arrived to the topic of my grandpas experience as a radio navigator in a bomber plane during World War 2. He told me a story of how he was flying in formation with other planes, preparing to perform their objective. Everything was going according to plan until a bomb from another plane higher in formation dropped through the wing of the plane he was navigating. As the plane caught on fire and plummeted to the ground, my grandpa got his parachute on and bailed out. Astonished at his story, I asked my grandpa, “Were you scared?” He answered, “I didn’t have time to be scared.”
My grandpa is someone I’ve looked up to my whole life. One main reason is that his 99th birthday is occurring August 20th this year. It’s impressive that he jumped out of a plane in World War 2 and prolonged his life so that I could eventually be born into this world. However, his consistent attention to keeping himself healthy through regular exercise, hobbies, and routines are what kept him spry and kicking with life to this day.
In my youth, I would visit my grandparents in Redwood City. The first thing you would see in the backyard were tomatoes, green beans, and hot peppers. Neighboring the garden was my grandpas shed. Inside the shed existed a multitude of tools including soldering irons, air compressors, and a few hundred pounds of wrenches. Some of my most profound memories of my grandfather was images of him doing pushups every day. He had an ab wheel to exercise his core and entire body that he would use on his living floor almost every time I visited. A pull up bar was installed in the garage next to the washing machine as you passed by his 911 Porsche he tinkered on daily. It was rare to see this man stop moving.
One of the keys to my grandfather’s health were the hobbies and habits he adhered to. There was always a project that he refined and worked to get it to the next level. The garden always needed to be watered, planted, or deconstructed. There was always a malfunctioning radio, a broken television, or an appliance from his home on his work bench ready to be repaired. The Porsche’s hood was open frequently with the upper half of his body submerged in the engine. Most importantly, I would always see him exercising.
I rarely spoke with my grandpa about stress or hardships that occurred in his life. Being a farm boy from Oklahoma and navigating a plane in World War 2, I could assume there’s been quite a few things he has seen as he reaches page 99 of his life. A primary reason we avoided speaking about his hardships is because he was always doing something to improve what was around him. If he spent all of his time working on projects, exercising, and focusing on his hobbies, then where was the time to share his hardships? Stress, sadness, and rough times obviously happened in this man’s history, but he never spent his time dwelling on these things. He spent his time focusing on what was in front of him to make himself thrive. Therefore, when he said, “I didn’t have time for that.” I can now see that he didn’t have time to be hindered by anything outside of bettering himself slow him down.
I want to acknowledge my grandpa for getting to this point. He’ll always be a hero, mentor, and motivator for me to keep my head up when times are challenging. If we could think about where our stress goes, how our animosity toward something induces rash decisions, if we let depression get the best of us, perhaps we can divert that energy elsewhere. Look in the mirror. Spend the energy and time on that person looking you right in the eye. Put the phone down and divert your eyes away from social media. Turn the television off. The stress caused by the news, social media, and shows we watch on TV are a form of stress society is stuck on. These forms of everyday stress we see at fingertips holding our phones pale in comparison to jumping out of flaming plane in world war 2. We don’t have time for these forms of aberrant stress. However, we have plenty of time to focus on what’s in front of us to live longer. We don’t have time to scared. We have all the time in the world to thrive.
Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.
