2025 seems to be a key milestone coined by experts in today’s “tele-everything” world. What would the world be like five years from now as we grapple with the global pandemic? Even Singapore in its recent Budget, has also made an important announcement on hiking GST from 7% to 9% by 2025.
As for me, 2025 would be my five decades of life on earth!
With every turn of the decade, I did take comfort from English novelist Mike Gayle who wrote Turning 30 and Turning 40! Come turning 50, I cannot find another instalment from Gayle. Perhaps he has just turned 50 himself!
While it is a cliché to say age is just a number, it seems more apparent as you grow older that the decisions you have made in life over time would bring about a huge impact to how you age gracefully chronologically and biologically.
I say this with conviction as I witnessed today some of the exercise movements which I could not do five years ago, I can now do them better and with more ease. You may think it is the fact that I have been trained as an instructor and naturally would be able to execute the movements more accurately. Truth is, the training as an instructor gives me an added advantage on cognitive awareness. The benefits of knowing and understanding anatomy would not be reaped until the body moves.
A year of post-operation rehabilitation had awakened a new understanding on how muscles work, especially with scar tissues. That, has dramatically changed my exercise regime! Our bodies are very smart: you will see the transformation to your body when it has received the right amount of dedication to it.
With scar tissues from surgery, it meant I would need more time than before to regain certain functionality. The everyday efforts paid off – I am pleasantly surprised how much stronger I am today compared to the younger me five years ago! It is almost an age reversing experience.
I used to applaud myself for being able to work out for three one-hour sessions a week, when most of my waking hours were spent at work either in meetings or in front of the computer!
Today, I would without a doubt choose an otherwise lifestyle than that which could age me both chronologically and biologically.
Still in my second year of self-granted sabbatical where I have set to pursue my development in rehabilitative fitness, I am also gradually seeing an increase in people and corporates investing more into wellness. The inertia and procrastination towards exercising seems to have evaporated into vapours with the unexpected Covid entering the scene. It felt as if working from home has shaved off the non-essentials in life to what is glaringly more important – the good of our health. This is when one has to mindfully decide that time has to be set aside for the good of our bodies.
As I reach towards the fifth decade, it seems easier to overcome inertia and procrastination. Is that tenacity honed over the years? Or is that a clearer vision of what is more important to me? Either way, I am definitely looking at ways to continue this momentum that has given me a new insight into age reversal, biologically.