I went biking with my best riding partner on Sunday and I wasn’t as prepared as I should have been. There is a saying that if you want to age well you should have friends older and younger than you. Younger for vitality to invigorate you and older for wisdom to infiltrate you. My riding partner is 26 – my hunting partner is 75.  I sit in the middle at 53.

The way we rode Sunday I would have been wiser to ride with the 75 year old and hunt with the 26 year old! As we clipped trough the Kettles, all of a sudden we were on a fresh cinder sealed road. What I should have done is turn around because the last time I road on that type of freshly sealed road, about a 100 people got flats in the Maywood Ride 6 years ago.

“Oh I will be fine, it wont happen to me. I will wipe my tires off when I get to the end of the road.” Well, I got to the end and I had a flat…a mini shark tooth shard went right through my tire.

That was only half my problem. The other half was I was too lazy to switch my repair kit from my other bike that I road in the 12 hour Road America ride.  SOL!  Well, no I wasn’t because the only good decision I made that day was to ride with someone more prepared than me!

A stop at a farm house for the right tool, a tube and CO2 cartridge from Jake, and we were back riding in no time.  But the truth is: you always have to prepared.

Short Cut or Long Cut

Now in health we can’t prepare for everything but we sure can predict certain things based on behavior.  Going on that cinder road, I had a high probability of a flat yet I chose the path of least resistance. I have heard it said that the path of least resistance makes both rivers and men crooked. You don’t have to look hard to see that!

If you take the short cut you often end up with, as my daughter Rachel called it in her youth, the long cut. Yes, you end up with a mess because you didn’t prepare for the inevitable. I had a patient the other day who was shocked that they had a diagnosis of lung cancer.  It is hard to believe they were shocked based on the fact that they have smoked for 40 years.

Certain things are very predictable. Be prepared to make the right choices or you will be taking the “long cut” home.

We like Ashwaghanda Complex for the long cutters. It provides strength and vitality for the adrenals. It gives stamina from the Korean Ginseng that is in the product.

Check out our past blog posts here.