Gravity, It Gets Stronger! Dale Hansen, Practice Administrator, Family Hearing and Balance Center

I had a Paramedic partner, about 20 years ago, who loved to laugh. When he would drop one thing, he would laugh, then throw the other six things he was holding on the floor with the one thing he dropped. He would say,”I might as well make the trip worth while,” he would smile.

One of those times when I was on the floor helping him make his picking up worthwhile, he looked at me and stated, ” I don’t remember dropping stuff this much when I was younger.”

 

“That is because gravity gets stronger as we get older,” I stated.

He looked at me, grabbed his cup of coffee, sat on the couch in the crews quarters, and asked me to sit down. “You need to explain yourself,” he laughed. “That has to be the strangest statement I have heard in a long time.”

“It’s true,” sounding as defensive as possible. “It’s Gods little way to get us to exercise. Gravity gets stronger, we drop something and have to bend over to pick it up…and one and two, and feel that burn. Our bodies sag, and our feet flatten, while all our adult lives we feel as though we are carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders. Eventually, we become bent over from the strain…walking slower and slower. We eventually wear glasses from gravity pushing on our eyeballs, and hearing aids as gravity invades our ears. We start using canes to help us walk, because we can’t carry the weight by ourselves anymore. We come to hate change, because it means you have to move something else to make room, and we don’t want to, because it is too heavy. That’s why I refuse to get a new couch.”

My partner took a drink of his coffee. “None of this is true,” he said.

“None of this is true,” I smiled, “But, I sure know people who do carry the weight of the world. They don’t want to make the changes that will help them. Things are so heavy to them.”

“It’s true. I didn’t want to take blood pressure medicine. It was inconvenient, a change, and made me an old man. Now that I do take it regularly, I feel better. It was more work resisting change than flowing with it. So, go with the flow!” He stood up from the couch, and dropped his favorite coffee cup.

“The problem is that ‘the flow’ stinks sometimes. I will get the broom,” I stated.

“Nope!” he said, “I will make room for a new favorite coffee cup.” He bent over and started picking up the pieces chanting, “And one and two, and feel that burn.”