Dan Regan is a gym member at the Stoweflake Resort and Spa. He is an avid squash player and fitness enthusiast. It is my pleasure to share his inspirational story on keeping fit and coping with arthritis.

At 72 most of my squash-playing days are behind me. Although I took up the game, a fast-moving racquet sport, late in life – apparently, there was plenty of time to pound on my joints. Soccer, before squash, had taken its toll too. Arthritic changes started showing up at least ten years ago on my ankle. In 2016, osteoarthritis of my left hip was bad enough for me to walk away from a consultation carrying a binder entitled “Preparing for Your Hip Replacement.” – I returned it to the clinic two months later.

In the meantime, I had decided to try physical therapy combined with modest amounts of over-the-counter medication. Today, more than two years later, I have “graduated” to a prescription medication, but continue to work out 1 – 2 hours almost daily. Luckily, my current schedule allows that. I check in with a superb PT, who is an acute observer and listener, every three or four months for a “tune-up.” Although others will choose differently, my road to an eventual joint replacement will be as gradual as she–and I–can make it.

No one chooses arthritis, although worse afflictions can be imagined. More than 54 million Americans, plenty of whom live in Vermont, live with doctor-diagnosed arthritis. Of those, more than 30 million have osteoarthritis, the most common form of disability in adults. If arthritis sufferers conveyed what they’ve learned from their experiences, the pooled knowledge would constitute a valuable life studies curriculum.

Here are some of the life lessons I think I’ve learned from living with arthritis:

1) Revel in a good day, do what you can to endure a worse one; but try not to read too much into either.

Unless one is extraordinarily lucky, or unlucky, the day-by-day trajectory is neither clearly up nor down. I don’t need a weather app, for instance, to provide painful confirmation that the barometric pressure is falling; but tomorrow the skies may clear. An overall trajectory may well exist, but each particular day need not reflect it.

2) Appreciate the small pleasures of life.

I take real pleasure in walking even short distances with something like the stride I remember. There are analogues in every sphere of life.

3) Learn to accept assistance, but try to gauge what you really need.

I use a sock aid, but only for the foot I struggle to reach and am considering using a single hiking pole for longer walks. For life in general with arthritis, it’s important to accept necessary assistance; but it’s also worth remembering that the Beatles sang about “a LITTLE help from my friends.” It’s a good idea, to the extent possible, to push yourself.

4) Move!

When life is less than stellar, passivity and inaction are apt to take over. Long-term, this is exactly the wrong response to life as to arthritis. On the other hand, although I try to move through the initial pain in anticipation of relief if it’s too much and I need an easier day, I take it—without second guessing myself.

5) Relax.

Time is especially precious, compared to when I was 20; but no particular moment is indispensable, really. In particular, not every second must be used productively. Waste some time, shamelessly, allow extra time for tasks; and minimize multitasking, unless you really, really like having the news on all the time. Arthritis and life require a dual sense of time–as both precious and dispensable–and the ability to move back and forth between them.

6) Seize any opportunity to examine what is at the core of your identity.

I had to ask—am still asking—myself to what extent my sense of self is wrapped up in moving as I had before. More generally, what makes you-you? And without a particular attribute or capacity, how could you reinvent yourself? That act of remaking oneself is also an exercise in humility.

It is also an exercise in empathy. Overall, living with arthritis has heightened my empathy for those—the many people–who move as gracefully as they can through life with pain either external or internal.