Getting to the top of the hill and the concept of a parabolic life trajectory

Getting to the top of the hill and the concept of a parabolic life trajectory

This morning I ran, with about 10 others from my club, from Noordhoek to the viewsite at the top of Chapman’s Peak Drive and back. Tens of thousands of runners and cyclists will know this stretch well, because it is part of both the Pick ‘n Pay Argus Cycle Tour and the Two Oceans Ultramarathon. It is one of the most breath-takingly beautiful runs imaginable, with the mountain soaring up, vast and sheer and threatening, above you on the one side and the drop to the foaming white waters of the Atlantic on the other. Absolutely magnificent.

Of course, your legs soon let you know that you are running up a hill. You climb about 160m over the course of 5km, which is not inconsiderable, although I didn’t personally find it as heavy going as Ou Kaapse Weg, which I ran the previous Saturday. One of the important things about running up a long, steep hill is knowing where the top of the hill is, so that you can pace yourself and plan your run better. Which got me thinking about my own life …

As I recall from my Grade 11 mathematics, specifically the geometry part of it, the equation y=x  gives you a different graph to the equation y=x² and different again to the equation y=1/x. One gives you a straight line, one a parabola and one a hyperbola, as I recall. Most hills are not straight lines – they are either parabolic or hyperbolic or some combination – you trundle along for a good few km, climbing gradually and then you do a lot of climbing in a relatively short distance and then ease off again to climb the remaining meters more gradually - sigmoid. Of course, having made it to the top, you have the opposite experience going down the other side or, as I did this morning, going back down the same side you came up. The trick, as I said, is knowing when the summit is coming and when you have “made it”.

One hears some senior citizens described as being “over the hill”, which is usually meant in a derogatory sense, to mean that they are past their best, have lost some or most of their faculties or capacities, and are really not to be trusted with responsibility. In that sense, I guess none of us wants to be “over the hill”. But in another sense, I am greatly looking forward to being “over the hill” – in the sense that I can take stock of how far up I have climbed, can enjoy the view, can ease off on the throttle and just enjoy life for a while. It seems to me that far too many of us stick to a straight line (never easing off) or even hyperbolic trajectory (peddling faster and faster as the “target” approaches – usually retirement). As we approach middle age and then retirement, we fail to recognise that, as my similarly-aged squash partner said to me the other day, “there is now more sand in the bottom half of the hour glass than in the top half!”

I have made a conscious decision to throttle back, as I approach my 50^th birthday, to take a little more time to smell the roses, or the coffee or whatever. To listen to more music, to read more books, to walk and run and ride more, to spend more time with my loved ones, to spend more time in prayer and meditation. On Wednesday I start a new job. There is no guarantee that it will be any less demanding than my current job but here’s the thing – it will allow me at least two hours a day of uninterrupted reading time on the train into and from the city centre, and it will force me to walk for about an hour a day, to and from the stations at both ends. It will very likely mean an end to my global wanderings, or a severe curtailment thereof, and a bit more local travel. I spoke to a friend this morning who is turning 70 this year and cannot decide whether he should continue working or not – he is a financial adviser and is worried about selling his business and handing his clients over to someone he doesn’t know well or trust completely. I can understand that. On the other hand, he has already had one heart attack, is moderately overweight and must be a good candidate for a second one. Surely he can see the writing on the wall…

So this is my plug for a parabolic life trajectory. Give it all you have got for those first 25 years of your working life – that is the way we are designed. Make your money, travel your travels, take your chances, live life to the fullest. But then know when to ease off on the throttle so that you can enjoy the view. Recognise when you have reached the summit. Don’t be afraid of the trip down the other side. You may have to put in extra effort once or twice when the south easter hits you or you hit an unexpected incline. You may, indeed, have to put in more effort than others. You’re not paralysed – just free-wheeling – the engine is still running under the hood. But don’t keep gunning it right up to the last minute just so that you can have the biggest nest-egg in the family, or the suburb or the city. Your biggest nest egg is your physical, mental and spiritual health – look after that first.

As 50 approaches, I am really looking forward to being “over the hill” (the princesses would say I have been for years, of course). Or at least being able to see the summit for the first time.