If your life is anything like mine, you’ve got plenty on your plate. A whole lot more than what you would really like to gnaw on, but nonetheless, there it is. Obligations on your time, job, bills, co-workers, family, health concerns—it all compounds to an unpalatable mush that you have to dig into in order to keep the ball rolling on for one more day, one more week.
In a previous life, I taught school. During my tenure as a teacher, I managed to influence a few young minds in a positive way with Sean Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens, a book based on Dr. Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. While I couldn’t really tell you to what extent the entirety of the book that sticks with me, the one part that I am reminded of on a daily basis is the chapter on “Sharpening the Saw”.
The Sharpen the Saw chapter is about rebooting your internal CPU. Press the thing until all the things stop and press the thing again and the thing wakes up with all the whirly parts perfectly synchronized—that is until some destabilizing force (usually called Monday) comes along and upsets the delicate balance of those precious whirly parts again.
Get Outside to Shoot and Reboot
Like many of you, I love to get out and shoot. It’s one of the things I press to reboot the whirly parts and make things spin in balance again. Here’s the kicker: Even working in the shooting industry where I am literally surrounded by all kinds of shooting things, I still don’t shoot as often as I’d like. To make another literary allusion, the “catch-22” of life often gets in the way of that. You are busy with life and don’t feel like (exercising, painting, hiking, shooting, canoeing, etc.) and you get busier with life which makes you feel less like getting out of the way of the grist wheel. You slow down. You get weak. You tell yourself that getting smashed by the wheel periodically isn’t so bad, after all? Is it?
Well, yeah, it is. Because what you might have been able to bear a few years ago becomes unbearable at some point. Body, soul, and spirit- we are tri-partite beings. The stressors of life affect all three areas. And get this: problems in one area bleed over into other areas.
It is vitally important that all the whirly parts are balanced and spinning properly.
Philosophy aside, thinking ahead to construct a little backyard range or basement shooting gallery is a terrific way to create a little oasis to reset the whole self, right on your own property.
Resettable steel targets are a real hoot to shoot, but if the noise from these is too much for your ‘hood, a five-gallon bucket trap filled with old newspaper, shopping bags, or foam blocks is a nice and quiet way to set up a target and have minimal cleanup after shooting. And even if you can’t use a traditional BB or pellet gun in your backyard or basement, airsoft guns that shoot 6mm plastic BBs are just what the doctor ordered.
Keep your shooting area or kit stocked with the appropriate .177, .22, or .6mm ammo, CO2, Green Gas, or batteries and put in some time unwinding with some trigger therapy. This really does do the whole person good and, with some deliberate practice, it will improve your fine motor skills and muscle memory. We’ve got a great selection of all these items hanging out in our websites. For .177 and .22 gear, go to Umarex USA. While there is plenty of 6mm airsoft there, too, you’ll find a more rounded selection of airsoft gear over at Elite Force Airsoft.
Mark Davis, avid outdoorsman, family man, and outdoors writer, is the social media specialist at Umarex USA.