Monday, May 16, 2011

The Dude with a Plane....(or how to be a kid again)


So I am the dude with a plan but last week I met "The dude with a plane"

I started jogging a week ago. Every morning i wake up at 6am and go to a park near by and jog in the running track for about 45 minutes. I am not too keen with sports but i got this from back in October when I was in the middle of the break-up and I couldn't sleep well. I'd wake up around 5am and not being able to go back to bed I'd put my running pants and go out and jog for about half an hour and then come back home to shower, dress-up, have breakfast and go to work. I lost almost 25 lbs that way.

I kinda let myself go and after 2 weeks of take-out i decided to get back on track. So back to the beginning of my story.

While in the middle of running I was sadly missing not having my ipod so I could run while enjoying the music i was trying to practice something It got stuck in my head from the last book I read. something about a woman who's travelling alone and she kinda left material things behind as she went and one of the things she complained about was not being able to miss the stuff around us and connect with the world because of being disconnected by an ipod or cellphone.

So I tried to pay more attention to the world around me, to listen, and there were other joggers and walkers with ipods, I heard the birds chirping, the seagulls yapping, the squirrels going up and down the trees, the cars honking even the train in a far distance, but all of the sudden i heard a buzz....

Just like a mosquito buzzing in your ear but louder and high in the sky. I tilted my head up and i spotted a plane. Not a real plane but one of those radio controlled ones flying all the way around the park..

I followed it with my eyes, trying to find out where was the responsible one for this and I found it...thinking I'd find a kid i found a grown up. A black male in his late thirties early forties was holding the remote and landing carefully the plane while checking on it and preparing it for take off..

I kept on watching him while finishing my last 2 laps and he was flying his toy, enjoying, in control of something (maybe something silly like a toy plane but in control) but with the smile of a kid and then it hit me...

That was his deal with life!

He might have a shitty boring job like the one I have, maybe a wife like the one i once had, maybe even kids like the ones i want to have someday but I think I figured out his deal with life....

From 6am to 7am he is the kid he once was....!

Maybe at 7am the routine starts. He goes home, showers, dress up, wear the suit and tie, wake up the kids, have breakfast with them, take them to school, take the TTC to the office and spend the longest 8 hours in an office doing something he wasn't expecting to do in life, something he never planned for himself. The at 5pm he'll leave the office, take the TTC back home, help around the house, pay bills, have dinner, put the kids to bed and all tired after an exhausting day go get some rest to start a new day again but.......excited at the same time...why?

Because the next day is another day where he has the chance to become a kid again, first thing in the morning, and that's something worthy waking up everyday at 6am. A whole hour to reconnect with that inner kid we sometimes forget it existed sometime in our lives...

We get so busy trying to play the responsible adult who needs to make money to pay bills and buy stuff that important or not, it makes us loose contact with what we ever dreamed of being when we reach mature age when we were kids...like for example a pilot.

This guy figured it out, and it seems to be working for him. I mean, it's just mathematical.

We take 1 hour everyday that's 7 hours/week. 28 hours/month. 336 hours/year of being a kid. Compared to 1920 hours/year of being responsible, holding a 9 to 5 job, wearing a suit and tie, and doing something we might not enjoy doing it sounds like a pretty sweet deal...

Much better than only doing the 1920 hours/year of stuff you don't like......

Maybe I should think of a reason besides jogging to wake up one hour early everyday, a thing that I used to do when I was a kid and enjoyed a lot, a thing that by doing it every morning for an hour as soon as I wake up it will make me face the rest of the day with a smile on my face, and go back to bed at night happy and looking forward another day of connecting with my inner child. To remember that thing once I dreamed of becoming.

I am looking, i promise. Is it music? Is it drawing? Is it writing? I don't know yet but i can tell you this, once I figure it out I'll make my own deal and I'll grab onto tight. I won't let it go no matter what.

Just like "The dude with the plane"

So to you my friend who had inspired me on writing this post....this song is dedicated to you

Learning to Fly by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers


Til' the next post, take care and keep enjoying!


1 comment:

  1. As usual your post's are great! Thanks to share this with us!! Sometimes we get lost on the transition of life!! We need to wake up from this subterranean world!! Kisses

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