The battle is on: Longing to Help vs. Respecting One’s Limits

by JimmyJames

50plus Magazine

 

I recently wrote about heading to the Gorge a few times a year to spend the day cutting and clearing debris around Angel’s Rest Trail. I do this simply because the work needs to be done. But there is certainly payoff: fresh air, physical challenge, meeting great people, and leaving with a fulfilling sense of renewal and stewardship of the land that I, and so many, love.

 

This is 50-plus Thinking.

 

Lately Ukraine has weighed heavily on my mind. My great grandparents came from the region, and today Ukraine needs help. So, I thought, okay, JimmyJames, why don’t you help!

 

A call for volunteers from Denmark ran through me like a hundred volts.

 

Considering it, I concede I am too old for combat. While I have a sharpshooter’s eyes, nerves of steel and an awesome grip (I recently bested a fit 20-year-old Air Force kid at ___(what?) Still… operating in the cold with minimal gear in a do-or-die setting are no longer my charter. At 50-plus-plus now, being on the ground in Ukraine is not an option.

 

Still the thought percolated for weeks….

 

Perhaps if I were paired with a young local soldier. I could carry Javelins over the Poland-Ukraine border. We’d follow backroads and hidden foot trails. One 46-pound Javelin at a time. In and out. Repeat. I’ve hiked a thousand such miles in the Northwest carrying a 25-pound pack.

 

I just might be able to be a mule. If the Gods were with us, I could do it.

 

Flipping again, I thought: I could easily die — of cold and exposure at night.

 

Still, the proposition pulled at me.

 

What about warm months? Go then? My heart popped. But the cagey Russian Czar will be making moves of his own then. Dispatching mercenaries. Evasion would be required, going by creek, swamp, whatever. Nightfall could bring wet and cold, my old man weakness. Fires are an invitation to be found, so no flames to get dry.

 

I grew up during the Vietnam War; was politically aware. When the war ended and I hadn’t been drafted, it left a mark. I was a lightweight, a freeloader, an untested man, a wannabe.

 

But here’s a chance to redeem myself! A chance to stand with the real heroes! The thought buoys me.

 

So tempting. And, oh, the bragging rights!

 

Wait.

 

Isn’t the flipside of 50-plus thinking — of helping just because — actually the gift of finally being mature and wise enough to know one’s limits? To be able to slow it down when need be? To temper the enthusiasm and stay grounded in reality? To know that this time my role is to somehow guide, assist and encourage the younger crowd?

 

I finally decide to quietly stand down.

 

The decision moves me to gratitude. For safety. For having learned the ropes and loving my senior phase.

 

I close my eyes and hear my late father’s words: “Discretion is the better part of valor, young man.” Spoken so many times, over so many years. I needed to hear it. My late mother sang to me softly, “There will always be other ways to help, JimmyJames.”

 

And then I hear the galactic dust settle. “Listen to your timeless father and mother. They are still here. You can’t fall out of the Universe. They still love you. Listen.”

 

Things I needed to hear then. Things I need to embrace today.

 

JimmyJames, I say, show some of that wisdom you speak of when doing work just because it needs doing… and know your limits!

 

This is 50-plus thinking, too.