In the book It Is Hard to Be Five there is a part in the story where this five year old boy is using every bit of effort and might he has to sit still in morning circle. Sitting still. Still. Sitting still. SIT STILL. He is struggling quietly in his mind to stay sitting still because that is what his job requires. We teach children that there is a time for movement and a time to sit still.
As I sit here with a sore back from sitting, writing, reading, watching, learning, and computing I know we sit too much. Our work and society has us chained to the act of sitting. Movement is wrong or something you do when you get punished, like when the teachers gives my son “laps” for fighting. Sitting however, is the real punishment, especially for kids!
I certainly feel like I am being punished or trapped when I am cramming to get work done as efficiently as possible so I can get back outside and moving.
I respect stillness and a time for it but, we have flipped to far on the scale as society that rewards sitting over movement. We have to consciously schedule time to move instead of moving naturally like we are built to do. We are told to get up and take breaks in our desk-job sittingness…..problem is these movements are just a reminder of a sad state of sittingness. They aren’t fun or productive.
Days where I must work on a computer, I try to incentivise myself with the hope moving outside shortly! I have also been doing everything in my power to think creatively about accomplishing my work without sitting. Technology is so that we can move and work at the same time if we get creative. I can record thoughts to write about later while I am running or walking the dog. I can give “moving workshops” or coaching sessions like I will be doing at Outwild in September. I can talk calls while I am cleaning, walking, or pulling weeds. These are of course, the advantages of the new movement in the work force to “work from anywhere (WA)”!
I wake up every day thinking about how I can incorporate as much movement into my day as possible. I am not opposed to rest. Rest will happen because we must sleep but, unless I re-think how I function each day it is quite possible there could be no movement at all!
Can I do a walking meeting instead of a sitting meeting? Can I run to an appointment? Can I bike the kids to school? Can I literally “run” and errand. The answer is most often yes! I will rest when I must finally sit down and jam out emails and blog posts.