Today I feel like I'm starting the back 9 of life.

[jerryskids 5,206]

If you can accept that you are going to suck for a very long time, and therefore not take it too seriously and laugh at your horrible shots, then learn to play golf.

 

If you are the type to get pisssed when you fock up, gets mad when you lose at things, and can't roll with it when people laugh at you, don't bother learning to play golf. It'll make you miserable.

 

Well... I could argue that golf is the perfect sport for the ultra competitive. But I wouldn't advise it for him as it doesn't sound like he has any real athletic experience, particularly club-hit-ball sports (e.g. baseball, tennis, etc.). If you haven't done that AND you are competitive AND you take up golf with anything less than a maniacal commitment, you will most likely kill people.

[penultimatestraw 473]

I've mostly gotten the weight more or less under control. Still need to do better. But I have been obese since i was 12. My father bought me a bra at 13 to make a point. That stung.

I gotta quit the smoking. It is going to Kill me sooner than later. I wheeze and hack every morning.

I pretty much don't drink anymore and never did heavily. Never done any heavy drugs.

I don't know if quitting smoking now can make a huge difference. How much can the damage heal over time?

Pen? Wanna weigh in here?

I know I'll get mocked for this and don't care, but I haven't given a Fock about the future in years. I do now. I have a vision of a great future and want to be there for it.

Quitting smoking can make a big difference at your age. Middle age is when bad habits come home to roost, and chronic diseases start to pile up. Can't remember the exact number, but 8-10 years after quitting smoking your cancer risk approaches that of non-smokers. Your respiratory and cardiac reserves should also improve, or decline more slowly at the minimum. Keep it up and you have roughly a fifty percent of dying from a smoking related complication.

[wiffleball 4,640]

I can appreciate the 'back nine of life" analogy.

 

Problem is, I figured out that I hate golf about the sixth green.

 

Much rather head for the clubhouse.

[Frozenbeernuts 1,652]

 

Well... I could argue that golf is the perfect sport for the ultra competitive. But I wouldn't advise it for him as it doesn't sound like he has any real athletic experience, particularly club-hit-ball sports (e.g. baseball, tennis, etc.). If you haven't done that AND you are competitive AND you take up golf with anything less than a maniacal commitment, you will most likely kill people.

I would probably say he is better off not having any influence from baseball or tennis on his swing

[Frozenbeernuts 1,652]

I'm 39, and I felt like I hit the back 9 a couple years ago. Some of that is just the reality of having serious health issues, but a lot of it is that I just started feeling like I wasn't on the way up anymore.

 

This will come off as melodramatic for a 39 year old, but it's not meant to be..... The moment I felt that shift, I started paying more attention to the manner in which people die. You notice some people do it chaotically or in a sloppy manner....but then you see other people do it in a graceful manner that brings peace to those around them. They do it in such a way that it almost enhances their legacy/memory. I'm not planning to die anytime soon, but I'm already trying to learn from watching others, and consequently I'm already trying to behave in a more graceful manner.

 

The differences are subtle. On the way up, I was a bit more selfish. I pushed some boundaries and slept with some people I shouldn't have...I'd let an argument with a friend sit out there unaddressed....In a work dispute with a boss, I'd push for every inch because I know I'm right and I don't want to lose.... There would be people I think a whole lot of, and while I was nice to them, I was content keeping the words to myself...I'd occasionally see what I felt was an injustice, but instead of rocking the boat and risking my situation, I'd just try to help in a way that didn't put myself at risk.

 

But now that I'm on the way back down, I have a voice in my head that is directing me to think as if I'll be gone next week.....So I pass on that cheap thrill that may leave someone else a bit of heartache.....I tell my friends how important they are to me and how I'll always love them....I don't fight for every inch and I'll let it be known that other things are more important to me....I have shot past that self conscious thing and will tell people how amazing of a person I think they are and I'll tell them what I admire about them...I'll stand up for principle even if it's to my own detriment...and so on and so on.

 

Maybe the best way to summarize it is: I assume we've all visualized ourselves as old men, and when we do we see ourselves having a certain mindset and behaving a certain way....Well I'm trying to behave that way now. None of this is to say I was a bad guy 5 years ago, but I'm a better one now I think. And hopefully by the time I actually get to the 18th green, I'll be someone that had a negative impact on very few lives, while having a positive impact on as many lives as possible within my sphere of influence.

Damn 39 and on the back 9 already? I don't have any health issues so that would probably be the difference, but I have really tried to be as positive as possible. Being negative just never solves any issues (not implying you are being negative here, and you obviously are trying to be a positive influence). I have read and watched some of Tony Robbins work. He has some very good points that do make a lot of sense. So for me I am going to keep telling myself I feel young still in hopes it buys me some extra time before age really becomes an obvious factor. I'm still only 33, so I am young, but this is also an age where the aches are starting to creep in.

[penultimatestraw 473]

Damn 39 and on the back 9 already? I don't have any health issues so that would probably be the difference, but I have really tried to be as positive as possible. Being negative just never solves any issues (not implying you are being negative here, and you obviously are trying to be a positive influence). I have read and watched some of Tony Robbins work. He has some very good points that do make a lot of sense. So for me I am going to keep telling myself I feel young still in hopes it buys me some extra time before age really becomes an obvious factor. I'm still only 33, so I am young, but this is also an age where the aches are starting to creep in.

He's got a chronic medical condition, which he's had since childhood. Given his predicted life expectancy, he is thinking positively.

[mmmmm...beer 691]

I'm 42 and I feel great for the most part. Got my first cortizone shot in my shoulder last month, which got rid of the only real lingering ache/pain.

[penultimatestraw 473]

I'm 42 and I feel great for the most part. Got my first cortizon shot in my shoulder last month, which got rid of the onlh real lingering ache/pain.

Still using testosterone?

[mmmmm...beer 691]

Still using testosterone?

Yessir... feeling good. Things have normalized.

[penultimatestraw 473]

Yessir... feeling good. Things have normalized.

You'd be kicked off the course for PEDs.

[mmmmm...beer 691]

You'd be kicked off the course for PEDs.

 

Do I still win?

[Frozenbeernuts 1,652]

Yessir... feeling good. Things have normalized.

How much does it cost you a month with insurance?

[mmmmm...beer 691]

How much does it cost you a month with insurance?

 

Blue cross was bucking me because I didn't take 2 low labs before the doc prescribed me the test shots. So... when I went into the office to have the nurse give me the shots 1x a week initially, they cost me .10 cents after insurance. After I started bringing it home and doing it myself, insurance said, no... we won't pay without two low labs.

 

Well I had already been taking it for like 6 weeks and feeling really good. My doc said, we could do two things, take me off everything for several week and take a lab to show it was low again, or just pay out of pocket.

 

Out of pocket, for about a 6 week supply, is like $42 bucks after a coupon from www.goodrx.com. I get it right from Walgreens.

[Big Guy 1,400]

Oh sh!t. I don't think I've ever told the full focked up family saga her. It will be a long one.

 

Let's start the story when I was three. Mom wanted another baby. Dad didn't. She just stopped taking the pill and had one anyway.

 

Dad meanwhile had a girlfriend, and she was also pregnant. Miscarriage. She was later raped by her teenage son, then went to prison for hot checks.

 

Mom and dad decided to move to Memphis for his job and start over. Dad used to mentally abuse my mother. Stuff like throw everything out of the pantry and make her put it back. Sometimes in alphabetical order, other times by color.

 

She knew she could not go to certain restaurants because he was focking a waitress there and would get mad.

 

Eventually, they became couple friends with the neighbors. Me and their son were the same age and became best friends.

 

All of a sudden one day, everyone was getting divorces. I was not allowed to see my friend anymore. We moved out of the house, and into an apartment. Mom suggested I go to the playground. Lo and Behold, there was my friend! He and his dad lived in the same complex now.

 

Took me years to figure out what you've already guessed. He and mom were focking, and he's been my stepdad since I was 10. He adopted me when I was 28, at my request.

 

The whole time, he was leaking my dad, his drinking buddies, secrets to my mothers lawyer. So she crushed him in the divorce. He tried to rent a billboard calling her a wh0re with her photo, but they wouldn't print it. I've seen the markup he had made.

 

At age nine I watched through a window while dad tried to start a fight with stepdad and stepdad pulled a gun. They still don't know I saw that.

 

At age 16, dad said if one of us didn't come live with him, and thus cut the child support, he would lose everything. I confronted my parents about it. Later I found out he was only paying. $250 per kid, less than his weekly bar tab.

 

Haven't spoken to him in about 12 years now. Changed my name when stepdad adopted me and my sister. I drafted the papers myself and led the court proceeding. It was the only time I enjoyed being a lawyer. It was special in a focked up way.

 

I did not find out a lot of this until I was in my mid 20's. Mom and stepdad said for better or for worse, he was my father, and it wasn't right to poison that.

 

Anyway. I think that's the major high points of the focked up family tale.

 

 

you're a brave man, so much stuff to deal with

[titans&bucs&bearsohmy! 2,745]

 

 

you're a brave man, so much stuff to deal with

Nah. It sounds really bad when you put it all down in one place like that.

 

But it took me years to piece it all together. Some of it I only found out a couple years ago

[jerryskids 5,206]

I would probably say he is better off not having any influence from baseball or tennis on his swing

 

I completely disagree. I played baseball growing up and it made it extremely easy to pick up golf and tennis. Club hit ball, it is all basically the same. Sure if you are a pro it might impact your swing, but at lower levels the hand-eye coordination is a big plus.

[BunnysBastatrds 1,918]

My Dad quit drinking thirty years ago today. I was nineteen. He quit for mom and me. A JD man. Two weeks after Dads day, I wish I could give him a JD on the rocks. He's pissed at me for the offer.

 

But I know he's in heaven swirling the glass listening to the ice cubes rattling around laughing.

 

I miss that man more than anything.

[titans&bucs&bearsohmy! 2,745]

My Dad quit drinking thirty years ago today. I was nineteen. He quit for mom and me. A JD man. Two weeks after Dads day, I wish I could give him a JD on the rocks. He's pissed at me for the offer.

 

But I know he's in heaven swirling the glass listening to the ice cubes rattling around laughing.

 

I miss that man more than anything.

Sounds like he set a good example. Perhaps follow it...? (I mean the quitting drinking part.)

[Cloaca du jour 2,064]

Jesus. At fifty everything went to shyte. Im too heavy... knees hurt like hell. Had a stroke. Changed my diet quite a bit. Really cut back on red meat. No more diet pop. Water or unsweet tea. More froots and veggies and a shyte ton of veggies.

 

Oh and greek yogurt is the shizz!!!

[penultimatestraw 473]

Sounds like he set a good example. Perhaps follow it...? (I mean the quitting drinking part.)

That's exactly what I thought when I read his post.

[cbfalcon 824]

have you discussed your health issues here?

 

 

Damn 39 and on the back 9 already? I don't have any health issues so that would probably be the difference, but I have really tried to be as positive as possible. Being negative just never solves any issues (not implying you are being negative here, and you obviously are trying to be a positive influence). I have read and watched some of Tony Robbins work. He has some very good points that do make a lot of sense. So for me I am going to keep telling myself I feel young still in hopes it buys me some extra time before age really becomes an obvious factor. I'm still only 33, so I am young, but this is also an age where the aches are starting to creep in.

 

 

He's got a chronic medical condition, which he's had since childhood. Given his predicted life expectancy, he is thinking positively.

 

I've discussed before but I try not to bring it up too often. When I do, I am probably often vague.....Short version, I have Cystic Fibrosis. I am blessed in that I have avoided most of the worst issues many with CF have. I take drugs daily, but beyond that I live a very normal life. With the exception of having a permanent cough, people around me would never know I have any health issues really.

 

I am obviously (at least I assume it's obvious) a confident person that has grown extremely comfortable in his own skin. So I'll talk about it with most anyone that asks, but I don't advertise it because it isn't top of mind for me. 99% of the time I don't feel like it's a defining characteristic. Anyone that knows me would agree....but when you tell a relative stranger you have a medical condition, they tend to make it an identifying characteristic of yours. That part is something I am a little sensitive about.

 

As an adult I've been very healthy. I was last hospitalized in 2011 for about 10 days with pneumonia, and it was 2001 before that. While I feel great and none of this really affects me on a day to day basis, I am knowledgeable enough to guess there will be a day in my 50s or 60s or 70s when I'll catch a chest cold and it'll be a lot harder to bounce back..

 

Applying this to the thread topic....While none of this is a dominant theme in my life, it's obviously a part of the equation when I admit that I am starting the back 9. It's definitely subtext of my interest in observing and learning from the way people die. But there are other contributing factors as well that are much more at the forefront of my thoughts. Maybe the biggest being that this back 9 turn coincides with my own desires and interests becoming secondary to those of my daughter's. Making her happy makes me happier than making myself happy. That point when we start living our lives for someone else that will be here after we are gone has to be one of the most powerful turning points on one's journey.....

 

Plus, I now am at the age where a PGA Tour run is becoming far too unlikely to attempt....my sex drive has went to shiit.... I have silver hairs everywhere in my beard/scruff....my left knee gives out for no reason whatsoever every so often...and once that 40 is beside my name on the Bumble profile, 25 year old girls will have a larger mental hurdle to jump before they agree to hump me. Welcome to the back 9.

[edjr 5,567]

 

 

 

 

 

I've discussed before but I try not to bring it up too often. When I do, I am probably often vague.....Short version, I have Cystic Fibrosis. I am blessed in that I have avoided most of the worst issues many with CF have. I take drugs daily, but beyond that I live a very normal life. With the exception of having a permanent cough, people around me would never know I have any health issues really.

 

I am obviously (at least I assume it's obvious) a confident person that has grown extremely comfortable in his own skin. So I'll talk about it with most anyone that asks, but I don't advertise it because it isn't top of mind for me. 99% of the time I don't feel like it's a defining characteristic. Anyone that knows me would agree....but when you tell a relative stranger you have a medical condition, they tend to make it an identifying characteristic of yours. That part is something I am a little sensitive about.

 

As an adult I've been very healthy. I was last hospitalized in 2011 for about 10 days with pneumonia, and it was 2001 before that. While I feel great and none of this really affects me on a day to day basis, I am knowledgeable enough to guess there will be a day in my 50s or 60s or 70s when I'll catch a chest cold and it'll be a lot harder to bounce back..

 

Applying this to the thread topic....While none of this is a dominant theme in my life, it's obviously a part of the equation when I admit that I am starting the back 9. It's definitely subtext of my interest in observing and learning from the way people die. But there are other contributing factors as well that are much more at the forefront of my thoughts. Maybe the biggest being that this back 9 turn coincides with my own desires and interests becoming secondary to those of my daughter's. Making her happy makes me happier than making myself happy. That point when we start living our lives for someone else that will be here after we are gone has to be one of the most powerful turning points on one's journey.....

 

Plus, I now am at the age where a PGA Tour run is becoming far too unlikely to attempt....my sex drive has went to shiit.... I have silver hairs everywhere in my beard/scruff....my left knee gives out for no reason whatsoever every so often...and once that 40 is beside my name on the Bumble profile, 25 year old girls will have a larger mental hurdle to jump before they agree to hump me. Welcome to the back 9.

 

 

*hugs*

[Cloaca du jour 2,064]

Nothing more infuriating. Watching someone that just completely sucks at golf taking 3, 4 or more practice swings.,

 

REALLY?????

 

 

 

I don't take any, not 1

 

 

 

Couple practice putt swings, but never a regular swing

My dad always said its like playing the course 3 or four times. I take one or two to get a feel and visualize the shot. Especially around the green. Gotta feel the shot