Here’s to the end of 2022 and welcome to 2023! Each new year brings the promise of new opportunities for personal growth. Before we look ahead, it’s good to wrap up 2022 with a moment of reflection. We can learn a lot about our future potential when we stop to look back at how far we’ve come from where we started.
As I reflect on my early years, my roots are in a loving family of modest means who instilled in me a commitment to family, hard work, and education. With both parents working in Blum’s Café, my preschool afternoons were spent with my Fort Worth grandmother “Bubbie” and her sister. I sat quietly as they watched “As the World Turns,” ate a chicken soup lunch, read the Yiddish newspaper, and napped. That recipe turned me into a scrawny, studious couch potato who watched a lot of TV and invented art projects to entertain myself.
Summers took me to Alabama to visit my mother’s parents. My grandmother Pauline’s cooking, combined with my sedentary lifestyle, soon fattened up that skinny little kid. I blame it on the banana pudding, sour cream coffee cake, and lots of bread with high fat schmears. By fourth grade, I was a chubby kid sitting in Mrs. Gulledge’s class on that fateful day when we learned the news that stands out as my premier childhood memory: President Kennedy spent his last night in Fort Worth’s Hotel Texas and then left for Dallas on the final journey of his life. I became fascinated with world events and was even more glued to the TV.
I start with those memories to compare and contrast the “then Marvin” with the “now Marvin.” I am still a lifelong learner and news junkie, but I gave up my sedentary ways in college. As my friends started to develop a beer gut, I went the opposite direction and discovered physical fitness. I was late to the party, but the benefit is that I developed fitness habits that are part of my daily routine to this day.
I write this post at my daughter Lizzy’s urging. She saw a photo of the young chubby Marvin and pushed me to promote the idea that aging doesn’t have to be a decline. She selected the side-by-side photos to contrast “fat Marvin” with my 2022 gold medal triathlon win.
This message brings to mind an excellent book aptly entitled Younger Next Year. Authors Chris Crowley and Jeremy James describe intentional steps we can take so our tomorrows can be healthier and stronger than our yesterdays. Now is a great time to start, for time flies and, as an inspiring song admonishes, before we know it “A Decade Goes by Without a Warning.” (Thank you to John Batton for recommending that song to me.)
I hope to inspire others to join me in channeling Merlin the Magician from the days of King Arthur, popularized in T.H. White’s The Once and Future King. Like Merlin, let’s attempt to live backwards and “youthen” rather than age. I recognize that prioritizing health and fitness doesn’t guarantee a long life. My brother Irwin was a fit 65-year-old who suddenly died of pancreatic cancer. The message is to do your best to improve the odds but remain realistic about the risks of aging.
As both a fitness guy and an estate planning lawyer, I’ll combine those roles into some recommended New Year’s Resolutions. Yes—eat heathier and get exercise but also make it a 2023 goal to take your estate plan on a “test drive” by asking, if I were suddenly gone, are all my affairs in order?
As we turn now our attention away from the past and toward all the promise that 2023 holds, I wish you a healthy, productive, and meaningful year.
Marvin E. Blum
A chubby young Marvin Blum contrasted against a 2022 triathlon winning Marvin. Looking back on examples of personal growth can inspire us to keep reaching to achieve our full potential.