By Coach Rishabh · December 9, 2016 · 3 min read
You’re sticking to your gym routine diligently. You’re working hard and following a solid plan. Your motivation was sky high when you embarked upon this program, but on the way, your progress slowed down like glacial movement. You start losing your motivation. And then comes the family event like some marriage function (we’re in the midst of marriage season) leaving your gym progress in jeopardy.
You are in dilemma. But you finally give in under the social pressure and decide to suspend your workout program for 2-3 days. How bad could it be after all to just miss gym for a couple days? It’s not like that you’ll lose your hard gained muscle or pile upon tons of lard in 2-3 days.
But after meeting your social obligations when it’s time to return to the gym, you just don’t feel like going. You have zero motivation. It must be due to all that junk you were forced to eat during the feast. The bad bacteria in your gut must be messing up with your mind. The lack of results and low motivation quickly makes you lose interest in your workout program. You abandon it midway and start searching for a new program with brand new motivation.
Well, finish the workout program you started and find your motivation in the 104-year-old war veteran Ray Chavez.
Meet The 104 Year Old Young
The Pearl Harbor vet is a local legend in San Diego County. He gives speeches to students, veteran’s & community groups and enjoys a good life.
“He never talked about it as a young man,” tells his daughter Kathleen. “Now he talks to everybody about it all the time … I attribute it all to him getting out and exercising and talking to people.”
Chavez also agrees that the gym has made him much stronger and improved his balance and coordination. But he also credits a healthy lifestyle: No alcohol, no smoking, very little red meat, daily walking and good sleeping habits.
Chavez retired from the Navy in 1945 with psychological wounds from the terrible things he saw. Kathleen Chavez said it took three months after her father retired from the Navy before his body stopped shaking from the stress of war. In the 1950s, he and his wife, Margaret, suffered another unimaginable blow when their daughter, son-in-law and 18-month-old granddaughter were killed in a car accident. To mend their broken hearts, the Chavezes adopted 5-year-old Kathleen from a San Diego orphanage in 1957.
This man has seen it all in his lifetime, and he was actually broken from inside. He wasn’t always so positive in his thinking or his actions, recollects his daughter, Kathleen, who is his full-time caregiver.
But after the gym intervention, “He’s doing so good,” she said. “And the gym is the best part.”
Her father is not only more active, he’s sharper mentally, she says. Wartime stories he had trouble recalling now come to mind more easily, and in greater detail, she says.
Morals
- Take life into your own hands and respect yourself first. Because if you have self-respect, you’ll demand something higher and you’ll exert yourself to achieve it.
- The path you take is of little importance, but what is really important is your belief in yourself.
- Accept the hardships that life throws at you with courage, and emerge out bigger, stronger and tougher.
Sources
- nbcnews.com/nightly-news/oldest-known-pearl-harbor-survivor-104-returns-honor-fallen-n692546/
- people.com/human-interest/oldest-surviving-pearl-harbor-vet-to-visit-base-on-75th-anniversary-i-hope-people-never-forget/
- msn.com/en-in/health/fitness/at-104-the-oldest-living-pearl-harbor-vet-still-goes-to-the-gym/ar-AAlhFY3?li=AAggbRN&ocid=U453DHP
- sandiegouniontribune.com/lifestyle/people/sdut-ray-chavez-pearl-harbor-veteran-104-2016mar08-story.html
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