By: Dr. Paul Mach, DN

Life is a drag. It happens so fast and then it’s over. Time appears to go slowly despite the apparent speed at which things are occurring. If you ask any of the “drag” participants, they will tell you unequivocally that life actually slows down and seconds seem to linger on. These people who live in a world where the blink of an eye takes too long, measure their efficacy by the hundredths and thousandths of a second. Life is a suicide run. You have no second chance. You must be on your toes constantly. The alternative is to lose or even worse to be smashed and die.

Life is a “suicide run” for us all. If you tune into the nature channel, the fine-tuned specimens of whatever species are acting and reacting at perfection. If they don’t they die. You never see a fat and sloppy lion, or a listless deer grazing the fields. They are sleek, sharp and finely tuned the way Nature, or God or the Universal Spirit had intended them to be. Their body is a temple. HEY YOU! YEAH YOU!! IS YOUR BODY A TEMPLE? If you stood in front of a mirror nude are you the lean, clean, living machine that nature intended you to be, or are you the creature in the herd where the announcer on the nature show would ridicule and say, “this vermin is going down. He be getting eaten or just plain gonna die,” as the audience snickers at this critter on his own suicide run.

So life is a drag. I have a friend who drives a front engine dragster and he will attest to this. This is a man of a special breed. He has no hesitation to straddling an engine between his legs, and taking off. It is the ultimate ecstasy. Sure you are tired and spent after spending a day with this thing vibrating your body and organs, but he will tell you that there is nothing like it in the whole world. To get off, and take off to the flashing red, yellow and finally the green launches you down ¼ mile of life. Your world is here and now. If you are not present, finely tuned, and in top operating form, you lose. Drag racing is a microcosm of existence that occurs in less than 10 seconds, sometimes 5. The more money, time and energy you put into it, the more you get out- the better the flight.

Last weekend as I toured Cordova Dragstrip you could feel the excitement in the air. I haven’t been to a drag race since High School 5 years ago (joke). Mr. Dragster took my wife and I on tour of these amazing men and their flying machines. This is life. This is taking it all and putting it on the line. No goofing off. You must be tweaked to perfection. You must dedicate your time, energy, money and spirit to constant and never ending improvement.
It is made to look so easy. Believe me it’s not.

The couch potatoes of America sit and watch these racers, or football players or wrestlers, or doctors, or any of these people who dedicate their life to their sport or profession. These couch people become the worlds best back seat drivers. It is a joke how they know it all, yet don’t even have the energy to run up the bleachers. As Nike says, “JUST DO IT”. Life is not a spectator sport.

Florida has had this big scandal going on lately about the new license plates that say, “ Choose Life.” This is not for or against abortion. They say it is to offer alternative. Well I think before everyone gets so harry and worried about choosing, controlling, and regulating others, I think people should choose life. Their own.

We are all speeding headfirst down the proverbial ¼ mile strip. The big difference between our lives and the racers at Cordova is they will be discussing their runs at the end of the night. We don’t finish this game of life alive. It is not a race. The only thing that matters is how we play the game. Are we going to finish life or will we crash and burn along the strip? Are we the lean, mean fighting machines that we should be? Did we use the best fuel for our engine? Did we perform meticulous maintenance on every aspect of our vehicle Is it equipped for the long haul? And worst of all will our vehicles give out before we want them to? Will we be trying to enjoy our ride and all our loved ones who are traveling down our path with us when our vehicle gives out? When the engine blows it’s too late to say, “I wish I would have, could have, should have taken better care of myself and my vehicle.” Broken down and dead prematurely, halfway down the road of life is a place I know you don’t want to be. Yet we look around and see it happening to everyone, we even see it happening to ourselves, and yet we close our eyes and play ignorant.

The universe doesn’t forgive stupidity. The deer gets eaten, the lion misses it’s prey and goes hungry, the American dies of circulatory disease, cancer or prescription drug mishaps. It’s a tough life. Any professional racer will tell you, “you lose in racing, you go home.” You lose in life….please don’t lose in life. CHOOSE LIFE….worry about yourself for a change. Do some fall maintenance. BE ALL YOU CAN BE.

As you stand naked in front of the mirror, look in your heart. Decide if this is the person you know you were meant to be. Have you sold out on your body? Have you compromised your morals, ideals or beliefs? Is this person staring back at you really you? Have you chosen to play safe and only live half your life? Only you and your God/Spirit can be the judge of that.

“Racing takes constant and never-ending improvement. You must always work to be better.” Thanks Mr, Dragster, I couldn’t have said it better.