Another page dropped off the calendar for me recently. That is not a dreadful thing because it happens to all of us all the time. It is a progression. I just turned 80 a while ago and I really do not know how I did it. Certainly, it was not through good healthy living and lifestyle, especially in my younger years. Recently there have been adjustments in behavior forced on by time and the advice of my doctors. Part of that advice included standing down from the firing line so to speak. That has been done.
Now if I had wanted a stress-free, well-regulated, balanced life then certainly the world of broadcast journalism (news) was the wrong place to go. There was pressure by the ton. The good news is that I loved it all and somehow, I am still here.
Pressure came from a variety of sources. There were long hours and uncertain hours and a heavy workload. That impacts birthdays and anniversaries and cooked dinners and everything in the known universe. I was five years in the business before I even had Christmas Day off. There was also incredible pressure to perform. You had to get the news. That was demanding work. As I have often said, there is no final victory over news. It just keeps on coming. “News Never Stops”
How then did this all come to be? How is it that at age 80 I’m sitting out in the sunshine today waiting for the weekend Globe and Mail to get in from the mainland? Well, I think the answer is in the concept of “balance.” The medical community does not share this notion with me, but I think that some excesses and some shortcomings cancel each other out and you get by. If I drank too much beer in my youth, which I certainly did, and had too many fish and chips, which I certainly did, there is somehow a cancellation in results, and everything is fine. If I ate too much salt meat and potatoes at regular meals and went other days missing meals altogether, then the All-Merciful Ruler of the Universe kept me alert and on my feet. It is a question of balance. Thank the Lord for His tender mercies.
On the matter of sports there is another balance at work. If you play hard at things like softball and hockey, then you do not have to mow the lawn much or go to aerobics or start doing power walks. It will all be fine. I had a friend who bragged about how many times he and his friends walked around Quidi Vidi Lake. He dropped dead when he was about 62. This balance rule also applies to sleep. You can be up watching news or reading until 2:00 in the morning and that gives you a free pass on having a quick nap after supper. Not a long sleep but what my dad used to call “forty winks.” Also, apart from a full nap in life I was not even above closing my eyes in church or even at family gatherings. My wife warned me about it, but I said I was not really asleep and was only closing my eyes on a kind of “screen saver.”
Now here we are. I still like poutine, which is a fairly recent treat in Newfoundland chip shops. I tell myself it has something from each of the food groups: chips, gravy and cheese curds. That is not exactly balanced so I have had to cut back on that. The same is true of 12-year-old single malt whiskey. A drink of Irish Whiskey in the evening is still part of life and a few strips of bacon in the morning is still okay. Why? Because it all balances out! The whole thing makes sense, at least to me. This is not a recommendation on how you should behave. It is just a thought on how far I have made it down the road. Good luck to you and the path you walk.
You can contact Jim Furlong at jfurlong@ntv.ca