What caught my eyes in the news this morning was the true story of an 88 year old who beat 86 other participants in the 3-day Johor International Kit festival to win the Best International Kite Performance trophy. This Taiwanese, Robert Yen, who had competed in this annual competition for the last 14 years was the oldest participant this year. Although he was aged eighty-eight years, he looked so hail and hearty. I should be really happy to be that good looking at that age. What a marvellous start for the year!
I am pleased to note that it all started as a hobby at the age of eight years. It means that there is a passion for something in his life. That is important for then, there is meaning in still being alive after we have retired from the financial development part of our lives. to be still young; here I throw out those meaningless numbers, the chronological age of a person. It is more the energy we are capable of having, the strength to carry on with activities throughout the day and the desire to wake up each day with eagerness to perform in our passionate activities. If we have at least those, if not more, then we can consider ourselves still young.
Having a passion for some kind of activity is important to life. What is life without that but sleeping, eating, working and trying to last till the end of the day without any excitement or joy in the day's activities. To me that is not meaningful life. That is merely survival, living each day aimlessly.
Furthermore, any kind of passion for any kind of activity would keep our mind and body healthy. With the passion for an activity, the mind and its thoughts are consistently returning to the activity, thinking of how to improve on the activity, how to go further into it and participate in it to the highest level, maybe in competition. when the mind is active, the mind will be stronger and not deteriorate into amnesia in later years.
In any sustained activity, the body has the opportunity to maintain if not increase muscle mass. Whether muscle mass is increased or not depends upon the type of activity involved. If the activity necessitates increasing strength, then the opportunity to increase muscle mass will be there. Even for those people whose activity does not increase the volume of muscles, the urge to remain healthy and be strong enough to continue the activity can motivate the person to take up some weight-lifting exercises to maintain the muscles or increase its mass. When muscle mass is maintained or increased, strength will be improved and with some kind of impact activity, bone density will remain sufficiently good for agility and any required movement. Through activity, fat can be reduced. With more muscles than fat, the metabolic rate of our body will be better, preventing obesity. With activity, our aerobic capacity will remain better than those who are sedentary which means we will be not pant and become tired easily. Then, with activity, the body functions of removing toxic waste are in greater condition. Thereafter, with the right nutrition and rest, the kidneys, the liver, the big intestines and the skin will be in tip-top condition. And with strength, agility, good metabolic rate, less body fat content and a well regulated waste disposal system, we can be assured the body will be able to function just as well as any forty-year old, if not better. Thus, our body's youthfulness can be maintained, no matter which number we have reached on the chronological age level.
As we can see, with an interested activity, it is not difficult to remain youthful and active throughout life.
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