The Taxes of Life

Taxes are due. There’s no circumventing them. People have been complaining about taxes for thousands of years, but they’ll still be due next year, and fifty years from now (if I’m still around to pay them, which is doubtful).

There’s a tax on everything in life and it’s probably futile trying to resist or stress over it. The tax of food delivery is an exorbitant cost for the driver. The tax of travel is a stressful time at the airport. The tax of running marathons is an undue amount of money spent on shoes, gels, and physical therapy. If you enjoy something, though, you just accept the tax that comes with it. Hated the tax is wasted energy. It’s there whether you like it or not.

I’m not sure if I’ll accept the tax that comes with running marathons after I finish Boston. The aches and lack of weekends are a price to pay, and I look forward to more leisure.

One marathon tax that is rarely discussed is the tax on your cardiovascular system. Even the heart can be overworked, and a number of heart maladies have been found in older endurance athletes.

These taxes don’t appear to exist in the shorter distances, or in pickup basketball, which I have thought of taking on again. I’d like to rediscover my fast twitch. I was actually a mid distance swimmer, after all. The 200 meter freestyle is probably closer to an 800 meter track event than a marathon.

Moderation simply demands less tax in most instances.