Don't you get it?

Every couple of weeks, someone posts something that I just don't get.
I'll say I'm working on being stronger, or more fit, or smarter, and they'll
make a comment about getting old.
Hey, no offense people, but what the fuck?
I am thirty eight years old.
Five years ago, I had damned near nothing in my life.
My wife weighed 78 pounds, and had nearly died.
My ex had sued me, taken my child from me, then sued me
again, and I had gone bankrupt immediately from it.
I lost my phone, we moved in the middle of the night to avoid bill
collectors. I lost my car, my customized car that I had spent hundreds
of hours and thousands of dollars working on. I lost pretty much everything
I owned.
When my wife would go upstairs to put the kids to bed, I would eat the cereal
off the floor that they had spilled. I waited till she was upstairs, because if
she had seen, she would have cried.
I stole food from work so I could have enough to eat and spend all my money
on them.
I walked ten miles to work, I am not making this up, each day, and hoped each
day someone would offer me a ride home.
I dropped out of college, and eventually lost my job, and with it, most
of my self respect, and most of my sanity.
And when my best friend offered to let me use his car
for my birthday, so I could see my son,
his mom said "no".
And I started over.
With nothing, except my wife, my amazing, beautiful, wonderful wife,
and my children.
I started over.
And since then
I have done so much
I have earned the respect of men who amaze me
I have seen the moons of Jupiter from a spotting scope on the side of a mountain in the
foothills of the Himalayas. I have seen the tracers streak the sky from a helicopter on
an attack landing.
I have seen the birth of my daughters.
I have reshaped my body, I am infinitely stronger, more confident and more resilient than ever before.
I have done things I never would have dreamed of even five years ago.
And I feel like my life is just beginning.
And nothing is beyond my grasp.
And you tell me I am old?
And I should accept things the way they are?
I tell you this:
It is never too late to start over.
It is never too late to begin again.
It is never too late to do something amazing.
The world awaits you, and age just means you do fewer stupid things.
And I can run a man half my age into the ground.
So, no offense, but if you are thinking of retiring,
thinking of relaxing, thinking of taking it easy,
then you are already dead.
I plan to do this till I get everything I can from it,
and then I plan to do something else.
And like my Grandfather,
and like my Uncle,
I expect that I will work till I die.
And I love that.
Live.
Live like you love life.
Do things. Go out. Challenge yourself. Run.
Old age might catch you, and it might catch me,
but I think it'll have to wait till I'm dead to try,
because I'm not stopping
and I'm not slowing down.
Not today.
Not ever.