Quick SilverIs it just me.....
Declinede·cline Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[di-klahyn] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation verb, -clined, -clin·ing, noun
–verb (used with object)
9. to fail in strength, vigor, character, value, etc.; deteriorate.
10. to fail or dwindle; sink or fade away: to decline in popularity.
While admittedly today’s word has many meaning and can be used in many ways I've selected the 9th & 10th definitions of it.
Like it or not, we start life at the top of our journey and we travel downwards from there. Each day, at the broadest terms, brings a decline to our life. One less day we'll be here on this hunk of rock. This, in most cases is not a bad thing but rather just a fact of what is or more importantly, what will be.
For the most part as we are children we think nothing of this. We are secure in our knowledge that we have the rest of our lives ahead of us and there will be plenty of time to worry about it then...later...not now.
As teenagers/young adults we are too full of ourselves to notice the passing of time. We are young, we know it all and the world is ours for the taking. We see ourselves as reaching new heights and the world spreading out before us as if we've reached a mountain plateau with a breath taking vista before us.
As adults our world is filled with work and raising a family. There is never enough time to worry about anything other than what the day will bring or possibly looking forward to the weekend. Even then there is always more to do than there are hours in a day. We strode boldly through life assured in our capability to handle anything life may throw at us. We drive ourselves forward headless of what demands we ask of our bodies knowing only that we are young and we can accomplish anything we put our minds to.
I once thought that way. I was there with the best of them, no thought to the future. No worries about tomorrow. Declining was something grand parents or great grandparents did. While, I am neither a grandparent or a great grandparent but it seems that I am starting to pay for the "Sins of my youth" as the syaing goes.
I won't go into what exactly those sins are as well...that would just take too long. I started noticing changes a few years ago. First there are the usual ones. It takes longer to heal than it did before. Waking up in the morning with aches and pains and you go to jump out of bed to start the day only to realize you're still sitting on the bed. Foods you use to love to eat before not play murder on your stomach. Where I use to be able to stay up till the late hours of the night and get up at the crack of dawn I now find myself going to bed earlier and hitting the snooze button more often than I should in the morning. Mostly due to being very reluctant to leave the warmth of my covers.
Even those things which were once perfect have begun to change and betray me. I use to have perfect eye sight…a fact for some strange reason I have always been proud of. Don’t ask me why as I have no control over that. About a year ago I started to notice a slight blurring around the edges of words when reading. This has progressed to the point that now my arms are not long enough to hold the paper away from me to be able to read it. Nothing like having to lay the paper on a table and step back from it just to read the print. So come Monday I’ll be making a trip to see the eye doctor so he can tell me I need glasses.
Yes, I thought I was invulnerable and that my eyes would last me forever. In my arrogance I had even convinced myself that staring at a computer screen for 12+ hours a day for 20 years wouldn’t hurt me. Oh the ignorance of youth!
Some lessons in life we learn early, some we learn later and some we never learn at all.
–verb (used with object)
9. to fail in strength, vigor, character, value, etc.; deteriorate.
10. to fail or dwindle; sink or fade away: to decline in popularity.
While admittedly today’s word has many meaning and can be used in many ways I've selected the 9th & 10th definitions of it.
Like it or not, we start life at the top of our journey and we travel downwards from there. Each day, at the broadest terms, brings a decline to our life. One less day we'll be here on this hunk of rock. This, in most cases is not a bad thing but rather just a fact of what is or more importantly, what will be.
For the most part as we are children we think nothing of this. We are secure in our knowledge that we have the rest of our lives ahead of us and there will be plenty of time to worry about it then...later...not now.
As teenagers/young adults we are too full of ourselves to notice the passing of time. We are young, we know it all and the world is ours for the taking. We see ourselves as reaching new heights and the world spreading out before us as if we've reached a mountain plateau with a breath taking vista before us.
As adults our world is filled with work and raising a family. There is never enough time to worry about anything other than what the day will bring or possibly looking forward to the weekend. Even then there is always more to do than there are hours in a day. We strode boldly through life assured in our capability to handle anything life may throw at us. We drive ourselves forward headless of what demands we ask of our bodies knowing only that we are young and we can accomplish anything we put our minds to.
I once thought that way. I was there with the best of them, no thought to the future. No worries about tomorrow. Declining was something grand parents or great grandparents did. While, I am neither a grandparent or a great grandparent but it seems that I am starting to pay for the "Sins of my youth" as the syaing goes.
I won't go into what exactly those sins are as well...that would just take too long. I started noticing changes a few years ago. First there are the usual ones. It takes longer to heal than it did before. Waking up in the morning with aches and pains and you go to jump out of bed to start the day only to realize you're still sitting on the bed. Foods you use to love to eat before not play murder on your stomach. Where I use to be able to stay up till the late hours of the night and get up at the crack of dawn I now find myself going to bed earlier and hitting the snooze button more often than I should in the morning. Mostly due to being very reluctant to leave the warmth of my covers.
Even those things which were once perfect have begun to change and betray me. I use to have perfect eye sight…a fact for some strange reason I have always been proud of. Don’t ask me why as I have no control over that. About a year ago I started to notice a slight blurring around the edges of words when reading. This has progressed to the point that now my arms are not long enough to hold the paper away from me to be able to read it. Nothing like having to lay the paper on a table and step back from it just to read the print. So come Monday I’ll be making a trip to see the eye doctor so he can tell me I need glasses.
Yes, I thought I was invulnerable and that my eyes would last me forever. In my arrogance I had even convinced myself that staring at a computer screen for 12+ hours a day for 20 years wouldn’t hurt me. Oh the ignorance of youth!
Some lessons in life we learn early, some we learn later and some we never learn at all.
posted by D | 4:01 PM
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