On Growing Younger

Just saw the movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.  A great movie and you probably know the premise: Brad Pitt is born old and grows younger while his love interest Cate Blanchett, grows older and how their lives intersect.  It made me think of two things: how can we grow younger AND the remarkable similarities between “Button” and “Forrest Gump” (separate post on this).

First, I do feel that we can grow younger (and without surgery ).  In this past year, I was able to complete three marathons (all faster than previous year and one in PR of sub-four hours), one ultra-marathon, two 30k’s, part of a 199m relay team and completing the Dipsea, plus two mountains of almost 20,000 feet (Denali) and 23,000 feet (Aconcagua).  But in retrospect, these feel almost like achievements and goals, than the “younger” part.

Even running more than a 1000 miles, 275 total workout days including about 100 weight training sessions were more about slowing or maybe reversing the onset of old age than feeling young in the mind.

I feel that I’ve grown younger and more current with technology and social networking – as many people have also.  Though I’ve worked in technology and communications my whole life, written and spoke about trends for years, I’ve been able to live current technology to a greater degree than ever before this past year.

With some great technology and moral/technical support & advice/coaching, I was able to get this site up in mid-year and keep it (mostly) updated with posts and able to add photos and do editing of themes and layout.  Recently, again with immense help, I was able to get another site up in 72 hours and completely filled with relevant stories, links, photos and relevant information.  Being a Facebook user for about the same timeframe and the ability to update status from my mobile phone was not difficult, but satisfying.  Recently getting off of Slide and onto Flickr was fun also, but it still requires a lot more work to transfer everything (and getting used to photo editing programs like Picasa).

Since I’ve recently added the iPhone to my gadget list, I’ve become even more impressed with how easy it is to do web, video and social networking on a mobile device, and this should help develop the market for this even more.

In the work environment, I’ve felt that I’ve had as much or more energy than in any previous year and the hours I’ve worked, in the office or off-hours, is probably greater than any previous year.  I haven’t felt yet that I’ve reached my work or career peak.

The other younger area has been music.  For years, I’ve been stuck in personal favorites and I frankly was just bored with the music after listening to it so many times via iPod on climbing trips, running and long airline flights.  This past year, I’ve gotten interested in (what some would call) new pop music though much of it is perfect beat for running, older different bands and singers and just generally expanded the scope to something more interesting.  (Though still, I’m still not really interested in jazz or classical, I can listen to a little at times).

So, goals for the new year: continue to grow younger with experience, become more video savvy (able to take, edit and develop small scale videos),  more new music, new physical challenges (first 50 miler, qualify for Boston Marathon, a relay from Santa Barbara to LA and even maybe a speed/running golf competition at Lake Tahoe).  I’m looking forward to new work challenges at Dilithium and expending every ounce of energy to make us even more successful.

Though none of us ever want to be 20 again really, it’s a truism that we are as young as we feel.  And if you can be even more technologically current than your two sons (who work in the field), that is satisying as well!