What if, everyday, people went outside and did something physical? I bet our workforce would be twice as productive if everyone slaving 9-5 could take a run on their afternoon break. Or even just run around. People’d be happier, healthier, able to cope with stress. Anti-depressant prescription rates would fall. Sleeping pills would drop off the market. Orthoscopic knee surgery rates would soar (or sore, as it were). Everyone’d be happier because they’d be healthier, and healthier because they were happier.

This upward spiral would not lead to world peace. It would not solve any economic problems. It would do precisely nothing to help the energy crisis. It is an idea that sounds fantastic and unreachable.

Yet, it is so profoundly simple, so ridiculously straightforward that, somehow, it has a chance of catching on. Imagine a backlash against sitting around: the point at which technology becomes so overwhelmingly intertwined with our lives will be the point when the masses say “enough.” No governments will be overthrown, no technology burned in effigy or reality: everyone will just go outside, move around, and feel better.

• Working out
• Excellent ideas

3 comments left

Essays Nearby

• I Challenge You to a Numeric Duel
• Comedy Scene
• Cars + People = Chaos
• Butterflies, Spider, Beetles