The Joy of Walking Around
There is a power that we don’t talk about, one that works to make our lives easier, better, and less stressful all the time. We don't talk about it because we hardly recognize it’s existence anymore - it’s so baked into our world that we don’t even think of it as anything but normal. Our great-grandparents invented cars so that we could drive them to school. Buses and trains and planes that didn’t exist 100 years ago are just as much a part of our normal life as the food we eat and the air we breathe. This is the most amazing thing ever, but I think we can all benefit from stepping back and understanding just how much we take those systems for granted.
It’s just past sunrise, and I’m walking to school in the brisk air of my hometown. The Canadian winter has lifted just enough for the world to start unfreezing, and while it’s still cold, being outside feels like a refreshing snap rather than a full on battle for survival. Today, for the first time, I’ve decided to walk to my highschool instead of taking the bus. I’ve also decided to keep my phone in my backpack the entire way, with no headphones in for music or a podcast. Normally my ride to school on the bus is where I find a seat and mindlessly scroll until the bus pulls up. It’s basically teleportation. Starting my morning this way keeps me in a haze for the rest of the day, where everything feels a bit more blurry and it becomes easy to keep coming back to the phone and have a whole day slip away.
The first thing I notice on my walk to school is how uncomfortable it is. Not only my wet boots and my fingers slowly going numb, but my mind feels really queasy about having nothing to do. I keep looping old songs or replaying video clips as I walk, but slowly I try to get myself to pay more attention to my surroundings as well. It’s a clear and bright morning, which makes the world around me quite beautiful in a harsh, cold way. I notice that the snow still left hanging in the trees and on the ground dampens the sounds I can hear, so that I feel quiet and peaceful even just a few blocks away from main street traffic. My brain slowly starts to shift from its frenetic screen-time pace, to move more at the rhythm of my boots crunching into the snowpack - schk schk, schk schk…, and I feel a calm and clear feeling descend onto my mind.
Arriving at school that morning I felt energetic and refreshed, even though I had just spent nearly an hour trudging outside. Our parents' generation spent so much time making sure we could get to school as quickly and comfortably as possible that they didn’t consider that there might be benefits to not taking the quick and easy way. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that convenience is a choice, not just a pure benefit. When we maximize our convenience and autopilot our days, we are making a tradeoff and it can be worth it to explore what the other side of that trade looks like.
This November, I have an ask of every one of you reading. Find some place in your own life where you can identify that you’re maximizing your own convenience, and see if you can figure out what the real tradeoff you’re making is. Are you messing with your study habits because you have Netflix constantly running in the background? Do your friends only ever get short texts from you instead of more in-depth facetime or calls? Is it hard for you to navigate your own neighborhood because you use maps every time you get around?
Whatever it might be, spend time this month finding out and see if you can intentionally make that choice differently. You don’t have to commit to a permanent change - even a day or two can make a big difference - but see if you can come to a different balance in whatever that tradeoff is, and keep track of how it feels when you do so. You might surprise yourself with the ways you spend your time and the habits you’ve got right now! Lucky for you, we all get to make choices each and every day about the habits we want to keep and encourage in our lives. NoSo November is all about using this time to build the relationship that you want with your world, not just feeling stuck with the one you have.
- Andre Policzer
