I was asked to give a five-minute talk about “living with intention” as part of today’s service at the UU church I attend in West Paris. I recorded it, transcribed it, and boom—easiest blog post I’ve ever written.

I was supposed to give this talk a couple of weeks ago, when we didn’t have church because it snowed, but this is a way better time, because my talk is, pretty much, about hearts. February is American Heart Month, and today is the day before Valentine’s Day.

Also, today would be my mom’s 102^nd birthday. My mom suffered through a lopsided, heart-shaped birthday cake pretty much every year of my life until she passed away; we always thought of our mom as our Valentine.

My mom used to go out every February when I was a little kid and collect for the American Heart Association. She would get this kit in the mail, and every February she would walk around the neighborhood collecting money for the American Heart Association, and sometimes she would take me with her. I never really knew why she did it; I never thought about why she did it; she just did it.

I knew that my dad had passed away suddenly, eight months before I was born, so I had never had the opportunity to know him, but everyone would say about my dad, “Oh, everyone loved your father! He was so good-hearted! He was the most good-hearted, the most generous man!”

Well, come to find out, my dad was really good-hearted…but he didn’t have a good heart. And six days before his 46^th birthday, when they had four kids, and my mom, unbeknownst to her, was pregnant with me, he had a heart attack, and he died.

For my mom, I think the American Heart Association was her way of trying to give back, to help keep that from happening to other people.

So I grew up knowing, eventually, that my dad, as good-hearted as he was, had a bad heart. I like to think that I inherited his good-heartedness, but I might have also inherited his bad heart.

But I didn’t pay too much attention to that, because when you’re young, you think you’re going to live forever.

By the time I was the age that my dad was when he passed away—and my four older siblings had long since outlived that age—by the time I was about to turn 46, I was, oh, I’d say, about 50 pounds overweight and I’d been on a statin for high cholesterol for a few years. Things probably weren’t going in a good direction.

By the time I was about 50, or a little older than that, I was 70 pounds overweight. I was working for Community Concepts, and they decided to do a workplace health challenge, an exercise challenge. I realized they were just doing it because if a certain percentage of their employees participated, their insurance rates would probably go down, but on April 6, 2012, which happened to be my parents’ 70^th anniversary, they passed out these calendars.

The information with the calendars said, “Try to get 30 minutes of exercise on each day for the next six weeks. If you just do it five days a week, that’s good enough. Thirty minutes, that’s good enough. It can be anything—it can be walking, it can be swimming, it can be yoga; you can do whatever you want.”

And I looked at that, and I thought, I think I’m gonna try to do it every single day for six weeks.

Now, this is someone who’s spent half a century avoiding exercise, at all costs. I was the last kid picked in gym class for my entire school career. My best friend and I discovered how to hide in the outfield and not have to come in between innings when we were playing baseball and softball, because we weren’t into exercise.

But I started this thing on April 7, 2012, the day after my parents’ 70^th anniversary, and I got 30 minutes of exercise, one way or another, every day of the six-week challenge.

So that was good. I got a pat on the back for that. And I said, “I think I’ll keep this going, because I’m starting to feel a little better.”

So, long story short, when I get to my parents’ anniversary this year, it will be their 80^th anniversary, and, fingers crossed, I will have completed ten years without missing a day of getting at least 30 minutes of exercise, and most days I get 50 minutes or more.

I like hiking the best, but the thing that keeps me on track is knowing that I can do anything. I haven’t really been sick in ten years, but if I were sick, I could probably get through 30 minutes of yoga, and if I’m feeling good, I can get through a five-mile hike.

I wear this pendant, which is either the sun rising, or the sun setting, over the mountains, which my kids gave me a couple of years ago, to remind me that you just have to keep climbing. And you can change your life.

Thank you.