Paul's Story

I’ve got a bit of hippie left in me and I’m a big Pink Floyd fan. It’s hard to pick a favorite song of theirs but the one that really hits home for me is Breathe.

There are only two, 8 line verses in the five-minute song. The last half of the second verse is, “For long you live, and high you fly, but only if you ride the tide, and balanced on the biggest wave, you race toward an early grave.”

I’d been racing toward an early grave for a long time. Racing like a tortoise, slowly but surely. I realized that the finish line was in sight when I found myself chronically short of breath, barely able to breathe. That’s when I heard about Paradise.

You don’t have to be a Tibetan Buddhist monk to understand that breathing is fundamental to living. I’m sure the Dalai Lama can teach us all a great deal about breathing but does one really need a holy man preaching at you about something that comes so naturally that you do it without even thinking?

I didn’t think so. In fact, the question had never occurred to me. But that changes quickly when you are barely able to breathe, no matter how much you think about it.

I may not be enlightened, but I knew enough to understand that I had to deal with the physiological obstacles to proper breathing before getting spiritual about it, so I bought a membership to Paradise.

After just a couple weeks of working out at Paradise, I felt much better. I had increased the volume of my oxygen intake. That, in turn, diminished the anxiety I’d been feeling.

I feel like I am back in control of my life. I am more energetic. I can focus better. One of the things I am focusing on now is my body. How I feel inside my body. So, often, far too often, our minds run amok, obsessing about all sorts of things that fill us with stress, which makes it difficult to sleep, which makes us run down physically, which… well, you see the cycle.

Enough of that. I’m changing the absurd and abhorrent reality that used to be my life. It all started with a single step in the right direction, toward Paradise.

I’m working out at Paradise three times a week. I’m working out on my own, with professional advice and supervision. Could I do this anywhere else? Not in Carson City. Working out in a pool is easier than in a gym and more effective.

I’m going to end by giving you the first half of that second verse of Pink Floyd’s Breathe: “Run rabbit run, dig that hole forget the sun, when at last the work is done, don’t sit down it’s time to dig another one.”

If that’s how you’re living, you need to understand that the only hole you’re digging is the one they will bury you in. Don’t do it. Take the first step in the other direction and meet me at Paradise.