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Ride On! | Nov 10, 2014

Do you mow your lawn? I cringe when I drive around and see people mowing their lawns and weed whacking without hearing protection. Don’t they know what they are doing to their hearing? How can they get used to that clamor? I am all for full employment for their audiology (hearing aid) colleagues but I would rather get my hearing aids at age 80 than age 60. Hopefully they will be cheaper, better, and/or covered by insurance by then so as so many baby boomers will be deaf that they will insist on coverage. Riding the lawn mower has saved my life. Well, maybe not saved my life, but certainly has changed my life. I dare say that only the beatudinous (WHAT????) vision that is my wife has had a more positive influence in my life than sitting on my lawn mower.

When we moved to Lafayette in 1999 I bought a new riding mower and I have a fairly big yard and it can take me just under 2 hours once or twice a week, depending on the temperature and the rain, to get the job done but at that time is spent more inside my mind than on top of that tractor. So, it’s not the actual task of mowing the grass that has helped me so much as the time spent listening to lectures on my MP3 player. I have listened to lectures from the Teaching Company about Ancient Greece and Rome, about the history of medicine and about music appreciation, etc. the lecturer makes or breaks the course and there is none better than Professor J Rufus Fears but he limits himself to historic stuff. Too bad because he could read the phonebook and make it interesting. The history of medicine lecturer was okay but of course the subject matter was important to me so that was pleasant listening. The lectures on music appreciation and sentence writing are so much denser and the speakers seem to drone on and I haven’t gotten through those series yet. Right now I am working on less history and more introspective stuff from the Mind Valley Academy. Stuff about meditation, quantum jumping, positive visualization and and positive vibrations.

Sure I will just listen to music from time to time but I can listen to music anytime and with the lawn mower I know I have a solid block of time to try to mentally absorb something. It’s like reserving a block of time to devote to a book you’re reading…I don’t want to read it in 10 minutes dribs and drabs. I want to have time to really get a few pages into the story…get up in there…immerse myself in the story…and you can’t just dp that in a few minutes here and there. Same thing with the audio lectures…I want to listen to the whole block…not just five minutes at a time.

So I think I have learned something about the world around me and hopefully about the world inside my head and who amongst you can say they are doing that on a regular basis. Hold a second…you can…anyone can. MP3 players like iPods are pretty cheap and if you can’t figure out how to get files on someone in your family surely can or you can YouTube it!

Having your mind engaged while your body is doing some repetitive task can only make the time go by faster and perhaps you will feel better at the end. Surely there is some subject you have an interest in…besides fantasy football and fishing…expand your mental horizons, not your waistline.

So far no one has asked the question about what I am doing the rest of the year when the grass is not growing. Well, I am listening to less lectures I can tell you that. On the other hand it gives me a chance to relax and enjoy when I am skiing or snowmobiling. You can’t have your mind on “go” all the time but you should try to get it in go some of the time.

Continuous Quality Improvement as they call it in the Industry. Taking Care of Business as Elvis Presely used to say.

My colleagues at the University Hospital have a slogan that says “Knowing changes everything.” With all due respect, that’s not true at all! Everyone knows you should quit smoking. Everyone knows you should get more diet and exercise. Knowing doesn’t change everything. Action changes everything. “Change gonna come” said the great Sam Cooke. Are you going to bring change to your life? You know it starts and ends with you. Maybe you will give thanks this season for your good health and spend a little energy making sure you stay healthy. Change a little something…in your diet, in your habits, in your thought process and see how you feel.