In the search for a more sustainable lifestyle, I have set for myself a goal of taking a day off more seriously. What that will mean, I’m not really sure, but I got a good idea of what it probably shouldn’t look like today. After spending a few hours in the yard moving a truck load of mulch around the yard, my arms and shoulders make me wonder if I’ve ever done any physical work before.

Like most things I go through, growing older is something that I think about quite a bit. Aging is inevitable and the diminishment that follows will hit us all at some point along the way. But I think I have discovered what will be most difficult thing with which I will have to come to terms. It’s accepting the two words, “I can’t.”

All my life I have lived with a belief that If I want something to happen, it is up to me to make it happen. From a hardworking family, I was taught keep quiet if I was not willing to work for it. I watched my parents do what it took to raise a family, send two kids to college, and craft a retirement of enjoyable activity. If I had a dime for every time I heard the phrase, “kwicherbitchen,” I would be able to retire immediately.

As a result, self-reliance became a high value for me. I knew I would need to figure out how to make the preferable future happen rather than waiting around for someone to do it for me. I took weight loss and fitness seriously in college. Running became an outlet for me and I enjoyed years of it. I learned the valuable skill of talking myself into that long run, despite the rain, and that it was dark outside. This mentality to “pull myself up by my own bootstraps” served me later in life, especially in getting this restaurant off the ground.

But after years of telling myself, I can, I can, I can, I am now physically starting to see that this will no longer be feasible, lest it lead me to an unsustainable dead end. I now can’t run like I once did, can’t work as long as I once did. I am a man near 50 and am learning a new language. I can’t once served as an excuse. It meant lazy, unwilling to try. It functioned as a challenge to tackle and a hurdle to get over. In a sustained life, I now see it needs to take on a new definition.

I can’t now means I don’t try to live as a 25 year old. It means I accept the limitations that come with age as a boundary that creates safety, not as a restriction that makes me feel inadequate.