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CONLEY COMMENTARY – Many of these commentaries are about politics and current events.
Today’s commentary is about life.
What do you do when you don’t want to do what you’re doing anymore?
This is a familiar question around here at the radio station. At the beginning of this month, my co-host of the last five years declared that she was all talked out. She was retiring from politics and was hanging up her headphones and microphone.
And, while I am disappointed, I also understand and, in some ways, I admire Meg Ellefson’s decision.
This story is about a jockey. Tyler Conner began riding horses when he was 19. Now age 30, he was involved in a serious spill during a horse race in Virginia. He broke two vertebrae. Thankfully, he is not paralyzed. But while still in the hospital, he posted this. “I have zero desire to ride a racehorse again. I’ve been wanting to quit for years, and this gives me a good reason to now.”
I understand that. When he was 19 and won his first race, the horse’s owners got the winner’s share of a $15,000 purse. The jockey gets 25%, and, after paying his agent young Tyler Conner probably put $1,800 in his pocket. Not bad for a teenager. So, there’s the thrill and the money from winning.
But the life of a professional jockey involves sacrifice. You have to wake up incredibly early to work out the horses you’ll be riding. You constantly have to watch your weight. If you weigh more than 115 pounds, you have to skip meals, or sweat off the pounds in the sauna, or make yourself throw up. And Tyler Conner is not an elite jockey. He’s not spending his summers riding at Saratoga or his winters at Del Mar. No, he’s a work-a-day guy who rides during the winter months in places like Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and Charles Town, West Virginia. And I assure you that race riding in February is not pleasant.
So, apparently, some time ago, Tyler Conner decided this was not what he wanted to spend the rest of his life doing. It took a scary spill to convince him that the time for change was right now.
My commentary today isn’t really about career choices or money. It’s actually about time – our most precious commodity. I hope everyone realizes that time is too valuable to waste it doing things you don’t want to do.
Chris Conley
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