Once upon a time, getting a job seemed like a good idea. Years of schooling, projects, promises, and finally graduation. You couldn’t wait until the moment when you finally had your own office so you could sit down and make the money you desired. Days turn to weeks, months turn to years, the work is never finished, so there you are, sitting in the same spot. Your eyes are tired, your back aches, and the last of your muscle tone packed up and left when you bought that ergonomic chair. 

The early summer sun shines bright through the window. You mind wanders… it would be nice to enjoy this weather. However, it may as well be winter, as your body can’t tell the difference in seasons because the office temperature remains at 72° all year round. The computer screams… it’s glow catching your inattention. Placated only by the promise of your undivided attention. And, so you remain trapped by endless toil, hunched over your computer, curled up like a cashew nut.

Too many hours of mental strain, stillness, stagnation age you prematurely. As time passes, you feel your body’s energy growing stale. Your body, left sinking in that chair, inert and forgotten, yearns to be free, to go out, to move, to play. Every minute that goes by, your mood gets worse, until that moment you remember you have a spine! 

Not all hope is lost. Your fate is not sealed by a domineering computer with a control problem. You fervently rise with the grace of a rusty Tin man. The glowing screen scowls, spitting its profane dialup language in your direction, ordering you to return to work. But the sounds emanating from your joints during their defiant liberation are enough to silence the machine.

You’re gone…

The hours that follow are filled with movement — squatting, running, climbing, pushing, pulling, picking heavy things up and putting them down. You rewild what has been tamed. You reunite with your barbaric nature. You remember you’re a healthy homosapien, with raw, untethered, powerful energy flowing through your veins. You’re more than just a brain, who’s sole purpose is to input data into an electronic box. You are muscles, tendons, nerves and tissue, meant to move. You feel the joy of vitality returning at last.

You may be wondering what the point of this is??

Well, besides the fact that I am trying to illustrate a story, symbolic of the relationship we all have with repetitive and sedentary lives, it’s about bringing the body and movement to the forefront. The body does not work supremely without the mind, likewise the mind can’t work optimally without the body. Movement is paramount to health and longevity. Every culture that came before us has had to come to terms with the physical dimension of existence. We are the first culture that outsources movement. Our beliefs and attitudes about our body and its need to move have affected our lives profoundly.

In the immortal words of the great Pharoahe Monch… “GET THE FUCK UP.”