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Giving Up

Having hearing impairment since my teens, I have balance issues that go back to then. When younger, it was easier to ignore it but with age it becomes harder. It was interesting to read that balance is an indictor of aging and longevity. Maybe for people like me, there is value is trying to fight the body to keep and regain balance as difficult as it is, the sooner we start the better. It's only in the last few years that I have started thinking about this is a problem because I find myself staying away from things where lack of balance could prove detrimental - it was almost better to have been in the state of blissful ignorance when I took risks without even being aware that I was doing so. 

The combination of new-found awareness and lack of skill makes for an interesting situation. Reading the article got me thinking about how I act with caution more suitable for someone a couple of decades older than me. In that process, maybe I signal to my brain and body that it is doing worse than it really is. This is like giving a kid a C when they deserved better and then the kid lowering their own expectations of themselves and going on to actually earn that C.  In yoga class, I am able to hold my own around folks that are much younger than me until it comes to balance poses. Right away, I skew far out of the average and start to struggle disproportionately. It might be that I have two choices at this point - continue to struggle but largely own that level of performance as inevitable or put in a lot of extra work to improve ever so slightly. My inner ear problems are not fixable but maybe how I decide to make peace with its consequences are. 


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