Taking Care of Your Health Isn’t Self-Care. It’s Survival

00:00:00:05 - 00:00:33:18
I'm out walking, this morning trying to do. Trying to do it every day. But honestly, it's really hard. What I am trying to do every day is do something physical, something new that helps my body continue to stay in some level of, high performance. Even as just stretching. I'll do 30 minute stretching, routine yoga, basically a little yoga routine in the gym in my building.

00:00:33:20 - 00:00:54:07
And it's helping me a lot. So the big point behind that, that I learned a few years ago that I've been at it for a while, though, to learn, to learn to do this became more of a priority. For a couple reasons. One, my father had a stroke and my brother died. I say that a lot, and I'm sorry.

00:00:54:07 - 00:01:20:16
I'm not trying to be, was disrespectful to my family. But it's information for me. I so that ties into yesterday. I went to see my doctor and get my checkup. And the first time I really went to her, and it was all all hands on deck kind of thing was after my father's stroke. Because it was like, okay, it was.

00:01:20:16 - 00:01:59:01
I realized, I think I need to get checked out before it's my turn. I'm the next oldest, male in the family, so I just I don't want to go out like that. So that was the the big wake call. I've always maintained some level of health, and awareness. I when I was 20, 25, I got a job at a health food store and soul food store here in Dallas, which made me really keen, keenly, keenly aware, made me keen to the idea of taking care of yourself, eating better proteins, supplements, eating greens, vegetables, stuff like that.

00:01:59:01 - 00:02:20:08
Right. So I've been on that path all my life. I've never eaten horribly. But of course, I'm still human. So that's number one. I had my those things happen in my family. Number two, this, idea, was given to me. I read this, feel from a couple different people with different versions of it, which was.

00:02:20:10 - 00:02:41:06
Nothing happens without your help. Nothing happens without your body. Everything. Everything that you want to do and accomplish on any given day is downstream from having a good mind, mental space, and a good body that can move you from here to there. And even if you're not, it's not an active activity. Your body is still housing your big brain.

00:02:41:08 - 00:03:10:03
So it is of absolute importance. Well, the colors got really nice. It's cloudy. And it's it's beautiful. It feels nice right now. So I that really took it to another level in terms of priority. I don't I'm not trying to compete. So I'm not doing the crazy things. I'm not getting jacked. I don't want to look good because I have, a woman and a fiancé and the partner want to look good for her.

00:03:10:03 - 00:03:37:08
She's my motivation in terms of that component and just caring myself and looking good in the mirror more than anything, it's it's knowing that and respecting the fact that our body is everything. Keeping our body in shape as long as possible is everything. Her knee surgery last year was really bugging me out, but I was in a good place in my life where I could afford it eventually.

00:03:37:08 - 00:04:02:06
Thank goodness for care. Credit. And I'm just now getting back into the space of being able to really be fully functioning, with my knees and walking. So I'm trying to do that diligently. It's tough. Right? Something else I heard today that relates to all this, that, is important to keep in mind because I think we all have this in our mind.

00:04:02:06 - 00:04:24:06
So I'll go ahead and speak on it, which is this idea of death. As you get older. I'll be 50 this year and, you know, in a couple months, bro. 50 years old. That's crazy to me. I remember being the young kid in every room, the young punk that shouldn't be in the room. But for some reason they let me in the room or they put me in a management or some type of leadership position.

00:04:24:06 - 00:05:01:14
Unknown
Always the youngest, always the youngest. And now I'm usually one of the oldest in every room. Not always. Course, I hear you. You're getting older, right? My parents are getting older. They're 80 plus. I'll be 50. So mortality rate, we all think about it. Or mortality. And the thing that I heard today that reminded me of that, it made me like, put something new, a new, framework around it, which is you talk about the elephant in the room being death, but the truth is that the little room is the elephant.

00:05:01:15 - 00:05:22:16
Unknown
The life is absolutely a gift. But death is is in every corner of our life now because it wants to take our life, though, because it just. This is the reality. I once had a, Chrissy. She was a probate and will attorney. She did protecting Wills. She said something to me that has always stuck with me.

00:05:22:17 - 00:05:50:14
Unknown
This is what's cool about meeting a lot of cool people. She said to me that we take for granted life. We feel like, oh, we're going to die in 60, 70 or 80. But the fact is, we're at any given moment we could die, especially, if you leave the house. But even if you stay in the house every day you wake up, there is a you're not 100% certain that you will make it to the bed at the end of the night, if some might die in that right, because it's just their time.

00:05:50:16 - 00:06:16:03
Unknown
But every single day there's a probability that you will make it home or someone you know won't make it home. And I imagine in that moment, because it's true. We know that intellectually we know that, there are people who will go to work today and we'll make it home. There are people that will go to work today and will get ripped apart from their families because of all the immigration crap going on.

00:06:16:05 - 00:06:39:10
Unknown
The heartless crap. And I'll worry about all that. And I just the desk all is being ripped from my family. As an immigrant. From Mexicano, as boy in Mexico, from an immigrant in here since I was a kid. But I'm still scared every day that I'm not going to make it home, either in one piece or at all, because something crazy happens.

00:06:39:12 - 00:07:12:06
Unknown
The risk is always there. We are always. This close to death and every day is as corny as it sounds, is a gift. So if you would approach that, truly approach that with that mindset or just that, hey, today might be my day. But you know what? I get to have this delicious food with this beautiful people. I get this is something from, a new, my latest podcast guest, Matthew Arroyo, who talks about the jet.

00:07:12:07 - 00:07:35:06
Unknown
I forget what he calls it, the get method, the get strategy. You get to do this. Oh, crap. I have to wash dishes. No, you get to wash dishes. You have dishes to wash. You had dishes to put food on. You had dishes, food to eat. And just enjoying the privilege that is, is life. It's tough as it may be for all of us.

00:07:35:08 - 00:08:00:09
Unknown
We all have our stories. Death is looming. Death is all around us. Death is death is the room. I try not to take that for granted. I get to have this life. I get to have these struggles. Now let's make sure that I have them. And I'm taking care of myself, trying to go for walks back to that.

00:08:00:11 - 00:08:25:18
Unknown
Like, you get to have this body. I get to have these aches and the aches or information that maybe I should be doing more, stretching more. And that's what the goal for me is. Now there's while I have a life until like till it's taken from me until my last breath is enjoying it. Working the body, going for walks, trying to eat as well as I can, having great conversations with people.

00:08:25:20 - 00:08:55:10
Unknown
Depending on your religious background, the purpose of life there is my purpose just to be, to serve and to give and to enjoy as much of it as possible. So when I do it in a body that is serving me, that's maintaining me, that will work for me. So I'll finish with this. In an effort to continue to develop it, strengthen my body, because I plan on being here for a very, very long time.

00:08:55:11 - 00:09:14:07
Unknown
Or let's just take it from me in the meantime. My knees are in much better shape than they have been in a while. I do walk long distances with relative ease. So hurts. But, you know, you walk 10,000 15,000 steps. I don't do that every day, by the way. I'm not trying to flex on you guys.

00:09:14:09 - 00:09:35:22
Unknown
I try to have 3 to 5000 steps a day, but, nonetheless, they're comfortable. I'm not worried about them, but it was. It's time to run. And that's the thing that I did yesterday. Yesterday, the morning I had my physical and then, had my blood drawn. I'll let y'all know how that goes. I feel good, I feel better than I ever have, than I can recall in my life.

00:09:36:00 - 00:09:57:07
Unknown
A year and a half since the knee surgery, I've been working on my mouth. Asked them as well as a whole nother story. But my dental dentist. The teeth are very important to your health. And trying to do all these little things and big things, expensive things to take care of my health. But in the evening, hung out with an audio.

00:09:57:09 - 00:10:23:21
Unknown
Is the the man in the family, was a father to one of the branches in our tree trying to maintain a relationship with the various people. He's a good human. He strikes me as a good man. And he's the one that introduced me to this idea of running low. I mean, running has been around forever, but this idea of this running club here in Dallas, in Oak Cliff, I went a month ago and it kicked my butt.

00:10:23:23 - 00:10:46:07
Unknown
I want to I know that it's the next step to really, get my knees in better shape because the knees are important. And just for context, I had knee surgery in December of 2024 for, torn meniscus in both knees. So did the same time because I got a discount. I got knee surgery. I had that repaired, I suppose.

00:10:46:09 - 00:11:06:18
Unknown
And, I'm just now trying to run and I'm. I'm hearing crazy cool things about running and how it extends your life and quality life. Life in general. Like, I can use a few more years. Let's play that game. I'll bet on that. I'll take that. So I went to first time with him last month, and it was a bit of a torture.

00:11:06:20 - 00:11:29:18
Unknown
Everything hurt, the most. The the biggest pain was my feet. They're not used to getting the pounding, then my knees, then. Then my gut starting to get cramps. Breathing. I guess it's just a mountain of things. Running. Ranking is pretty involved. It involves your whole body. If you go work out, you work at the chest and primarily the chest and whatever other muscles there need to support it.

00:11:29:20 - 00:12:04:03
Unknown
But it's kind of isolated. Running involves everything. So my knees were hurting my back. Everything was hurting in this day, but not that bad. So I felt promising. So yesterday I went for the first time. Since then and we finished the track around the Trinity. It was a little over two miles. We did it a I forgot what you said like 30 minutes, but the last quarter, last third of the the thing last whatever that is the third of the route we walked primarily catching my breath, but man, I felt good.

00:12:04:03 - 00:12:26:12
Unknown
I didn't feel as bad. I didn't get any cramps, got sweat. My my biggest challenge, I think, which makes sense, is going to be at my feet, my feet health, foot health, but my little muscles in my my feet learning how to run like just to run basic or running. All kids know how to run. They just do it.

00:12:26:15 - 00:12:44:11
Unknown
I'm here thinking because I felt like my my little, my feet were doing this to try to land and it was becoming more and more challenging and which was creating tension. And I, it was just a mess. So then, we stopped, we pause, we walked, and then we did it again. And her about a little better and got a little better.

00:12:44:11 - 00:13:05:21
Unknown
But I felt like I was learning. So just basic running and how to plant my feet, in a way that I guess makes sense. It was the craziest thing. So mentally I was on my feet. And of course, I think obviously you're running the first impact point of impact is your feces. Trying to get that right. My knees hurt.

00:13:05:23 - 00:13:26:06
Unknown
Not terrible though. It wasn't bad enough to where I had to stop because of my knees. I started meaning to rise as my feet were just getting to to sore the sweat. My three things, I guess. Sweating my eyes and just out of breath. So developing, cardiovascular. What is it? The lung capacity. And it used to pump in my lungs.

00:13:26:06 - 00:13:53:21
Unknown
So that's that. I'm excited though. I'm gonna take it. Slow down a I'm enjoy it. I don't want this to be a job. So much is just a thing to do to get escape. This is socialization. The social component to this, which I think is I'll leave you this as we head into this world where AI dominates everything, and we can have AI, friends and AI hobbies and AI, whatever, whatever, whatever.

00:13:53:23 - 00:14:18:07
Unknown
I think it's going to push more of us out to be out in nature. And there's there's groups of people that are doing all types of things. So there's a social component, there's a lot of people there. So as I continue to get more and more comfortable to start trying to hang out with them, so it makes me friends and just, feel human because that's that's important, isn't it?

00:14:18:07 - 00:14:42:00
Unknown
Ceiling human. I had a conversation with a friend of mine, the other day while walking at you. 10,000 steps that day, and he was talking about his fear of AI and what it's doing to us. And we're all just, we're all not going outside. I said, I think my take on that is we're going to want to to feel things.

00:14:42:00 - 00:15:08:09
Unknown
We're going to realize how much we miss people and is going to we're going to correct or overcorrect now, whatever we may call it, to actually pushing us outside to do more things. Oh, I think the his chief argument was, how do we know what's true? Because everything is can be, faked. The fakes, everything's looking so good, it almost looks impossible to tell what's fake or not, what news is real and what people are even saying.

00:15:08:13 - 00:15:37:05
Unknown
I think we've always had a version of that catfishing. Right. But now it's even worse. So I think my my response to that is, yes, that's possible. And it's probably going to happen, but also is going to increase the, the, the value and the need to be out in real life IRL and hanging with people and getting our information from others and actually just not groping, but touching.

00:15:37:07 - 00:16:06:01
Unknown
Oh, your human, let's get back to being human. Let's do more things. Let's get out of the house. Was get a suntan for me, get darker. Let's, maintain our health. Let's connect. What are you doing to to maintain your health? Are you actively or not? Actively. Getting out. What are you trying to do to change the story of your your life and your health?

00:16:06:03 - 00:16:11:16
Unknown
Let me know. Let me know in the comments. Let me know. Email me now a good day. I hope to hear from you.