It doesn't get easier...

You just get faster!

My birthday is today, and I still can’t believe I’m 50. Some days, I wake up feeling like I’m just starting to figure things out in life. Other days, when I reach for my reading glasses, I’m reminded of my age. I was going to write about the “50 things I’ve learned these past 50 years,” but instead, I want to share something that recently hit home.

I was on a bike ride with my brother (who is exactly three years older—we were both born on August 31st!) and his wife. We’re training for a 58-mile race that we completed last year. I’m still undecided about doing it again this year and am not sure why I agreed when they asked if I’d participate. I have a lot on my plate right now and haven’t really trained. I asked my sister-in-law about the hills we were navigating on our bikes and whether it ever gets easier. She said, “It never gets easier; you just get faster.”

Isn’t that true? With almost everything in life, it’s about the proficiency we build through repetition. I can now drop into the splits without much, if any, warm-up. In the early years of my yoga practice, I had to do quite a long flow to get close to the splits, and it took me several years of consistent effort to achieve them initially.

When I was training for my first marathon, running never felt easy. At first, I would procrastinate until I finally felt “ready” to head out. As I ran more, I became not only faster on my actual runs but also quicker at getting out the door. Running is still very challenging for me, and I know I’ll feel the difficulty each time, but I also notice that with each run, I’m getting stronger and faster.

As a child, learning to read was tedious. We had to sound out each word and practice memorizing sight words until we could form sentences. Once we could form a sentence, we could read a paragraph, then eventually a page, and finally, a full book. As we get older, reading becomes easier and faster. I think we may take for granted that at one time in our lives, we couldn’t read at all.

One of the most important areas where proficiency matters is in the speed of recovery. I have an incredible yoga teacher who always talked about the ability to bounce back in life. Building resilience is a part of growing older. The beauty of aging is that we get so much more practice at falling and picking ourselves back up. It’s a privilege to have so many learning experiences in life. It’s not about preventing the fall; it’s about learning to bounce back time and time again. The faster we can recover, the better. Sometimes it’s easier to wallow in misery, dwell on our mistakes, or fixate on what we did wrong; but it’s so much better to pick ourselves up and move on. We need to process our emotions and experiences; yet, the sooner we can move on, the more likely we are to learn new lessons and avoid repeating the same ones.

It’s also important to get quicker at letting go of grudges and anger. Holding onto negative energy only harms ourselves. It reminds me of the famous quote by Nelson Mandela: “Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and hoping it kills the other person.” As we age, hopefully, we learn to let go of grievances more quickly and create harmony in our lives. We can also learn to remove things or people from our lives when they no longer align with our values or become more draining than uplifting. Moving on is hard, but staying stuck is much harder. When we learn to listen to our gut instincts faster, we make decisions more quickly and become more aware of what matters to us.

All of a sudden, we might find ourselves doing things with ease after struggling for many years. The beautiful thing is we don’t lose our ability once we learn something, and if we continue to practice, we become more proficient in our skills. I know that if I keep getting back on my bike, I’ll get faster. With anything in life, it takes dedication and time, and soon enough, time flies because you’re so skilled that the faster you go, the more fun you have. Hopefully, if I do ride this year, I won’t white-knuckle it the entire time on the descent but let go a bit more and let myself fly down the mountain at lightning speed! Or better yet, next time my brother asks me if I want to do this torturous ride, I’ll be very quick to say NO.