The following Ask Uncle Marty™ column piece is slated to be shared in MBC Today Volume 28 Issue 4 on July 7, 2026. It was also published on aymhigh.com on July 6, 2026.
I had a dear friend who died in 2018, shortly after her
100th birthday. Her name was Mary and she and my grandmother and some of my
great-aunts were friends as teenagers.
Mary was an amazing woman. She didn't get married young and
start a family, as many women of her generation did. Instead, she began a
career at IBM, which was started in my hometown, and got to know many of its
original executives as a message courier between offices.
She eventually did marry, but she and her spouse Howard
chose to travel the world as often as they could rather than follow the
traditional homebodied family route. Mary had a pilot's license and she and
Howard would often hitch rides on freighter ships to far-away places, staying
and eating with the crew as guests, allowing the globetrotting couple to see
parts of the world that other tourists wouldn't normally have access to.
I loved Mary very much. Because she never had children or
grandchildren, she took my siblings and me under her wings and was a formidable
and formative figure in our lives. And I learned a lot from her; she inspires
me to this day with her willingness to break the mold, do her own thing, travel
as much as possible, and not live by other people's standards.
Howard, who had turned into quite the curmudgeon, died quite
a while before Mary did, as he was a good bit older than her. He left a note
pinned to his shirt that said something like, "No funeral. No obituary.
Let 'em guess." So, that's exactly what she did! I love her for that.
In fact, my sister and I loved Howard's phrase, "Let
'em guess," so much that we both now wear bracelets that have that phrase
engraved on the underside—a quiet reminder to each of us that many things are
simply no one else's business.
A quick cremation and burial of crotchety old Howard later,
Mary swiftly sold the home they had built and loved for many, many decades and
moved into a brand new, quite fancy retirement community. Eventually, she
continued graduating to more assisted living in that all-in-one facility and
ended up in the skilled nursing section before she finished her adventures.
Mary and I would often go on dates. She drove well into her
90s, but after she gave up her car I would sometimes pick her up and we'd go
out to eat, go shopping, or just have a nice Sunday brunch in the beautiful
restaurant at her complex. One thing she would tell me over and over again—each
time she took a little too long (by her standards) to get up, walk somewhere,
or do something that she used to be quite capable of doing—was, "Don't get
old!" She always said it with a smirk and a wink, but she also meant it.
I'm not old. But I am solidly middle-aged, and I now need to wear bifocals with a special anti-glare coating that allows me to drive at
night more confidently. Just yesterday, I walked up my stairs four times to get
a roll of paper towels from my storage closet to bring back downstairs to my
kitchen, and three of the four times had to go back downstairs because I forgot
what I walked up the stairs for in the first place.
At a recent appointment, my dermatologist kindly let me know
that what I thought was eczema on the back of my hands are actually age spots,
and my barber loves to point out that my beard is now just as much gray as it
is brown—but I kinda love the grey beard and am very grateful to still have a
full head of very thick still-heavier-on-the-pepper-than-on-the-salt hair.
Regardless, at a sprightly 47 I'm doing my best to put my
health as a priority and exercise daily, successfully maintaining my goal
weight that I finally reached at the end of 2025. I moisturize, get regular
facials, massages, manicures, and pedicures, and take various and sundry
prescribed cholesterol medications, blood pressure medications, arthritis
medications, and diabetes medications, as well as vitamins, supplements, and a
daily fiber regimen that has changed my life (I'll spare you those details).
One thing most of my Gen X peers and I experience now, much
more than ever before, is back pain. Could mine be due to decades spent in the
shipping industry, lifting heavy packages less than correctly? Certainly. Could
it also be due to the aforementioned arthritis I now am blessed with in my
lower back and knees? You bet! It's just part of life now.
In fact, just this morning I woke up all wonky. I'm an
incredibly sound sleeper and didn't even notice the severe thunderstorms my
area experience during the night. I woke up with four of my five pillows
splayed on the floor and my body lying perpendicular across my bed. I was in a
position that really got me scratching my head, and when I tried to get up I
could barely stand because of a totally twisted back.
I trusted fully in the handrail as I slowly made my way down
the stairs and stumbled to the kitchen (to pour myself a cup of ambition). I
live in a townhome community with neighbors all around, so I'm sure if anyone
was looking in they must have had a good laugh. Hobbling (and at times
crawling) around for a few hours until I could walk normally again and make it
back upstairs to my home office, I heard Mary's voice going over and over in my
head saying, "Don't get old."
I'm embracing getting older. And I'm embracing the bonus
years that I've been living in since getting my cancer-free news over 13 years
ago, as well as embracing the ability I had to semi-retire at 44 when I sold my
business two and a half years ago. I'm determined not to waste the incredible
gifts that I've been given while also accepting the fact that there are some
things that I can't do as well as I once could, while at the same time also
embracing the things that I'm getting better at as time goes on...and the
wisdom that I hope I'm gaining as a result.
But the back pain worries me.
I know it'll be fine and I'm doing my best to stretch it out
and work through it. It's infrequent, but powerful when it shows up. I'm sure
many (most) of you can relate, as back issues tend to plague many people who
have had long careers in labor-intensive fields.
Because I know many of you are still young enough to not yet
have back issues, or haven't yet lifted that super heavy box that you shouldn't
have lifted alone, I want to share with you a safety protocol I installed in my
business well over a decade ago, albeit too late for those of us who had done
damage already: lift with your legs, not with your back. And when
you do have to lift something too heavy for you, don't be a hero. Ask for help.
Team lift and use braces and tools available to you to assist.
I have too many friends whose backs are shot and it affects
their lives in too many ways. I feel that I still have a lot to see and
accomplish on this planet and, universe willing, I'll be gracing your
magazines, blog rolls, and podcast feeds for years to come with lessons I've
learned along my life's trajectory that may (or may not) be of value to you.
And if there's one piece of learned-the-hard-way wisdom that I can impart, in
the spirit of dear Mary's "Don't get old" and grumpy Howard's
"Let 'em guess," it's that you need to protect your health,
your privacy, and your peace.
Please don't break your back, literally or metaphorically.
Work hard, yes. Work very hard! Invest that all-important sweat equity, because
I promise it pays off. Most of you are entrepreneurs like me, sacrificing the
traditional 40-hour work week and comfortable pension to build something that
will have a good return in the end. So, make decisions with that end goal in
mind, but also with your long-term mental and physical health in mind.
Work smart—in balance, taking necessary time to enjoy life
and all of the blessings it has to offer. Someday, if you're lucky enough to
reach your 100th birthday like Mary did, you can look back and be very grateful
for decisions you've made to get to that end—even if they did go against a
traditional mold.
...
Marty Johnson is a Business & Leadership Coach at AYM High Consultants, a columnist, an editor, and Co-Host of the MoJo Motivation™ podcast. In 2023, he sold his popular shipping, storage, and printing business, Uncle Marty’s, and retired from shopkeeper life in order to focus on writing and coaching. Subscribe to his free newsletter and read more at askunclemarty.com; follow him on socials @askunclemarty.
