If you’ve travelled recently and been in a hurry, you’ve likely encountered people moving preposterously slow and wondered, “Why don’t people MOVE their bodies?”
Some people have no where to be and all the time in the world to get there. These people love to hang out at airports. They walk in families, lackadaisically, four abreast like a human barricade. They stand motionless on people movers, rolling-bag idly clogging up the passing lane to their side. They waddle, yes waddle, at half-pace while those in a hurry look for an opening to pass. They stand on escalators, apathetically watching the tram come and go, with no motivation to take a single step to catch it OR move to one side to allow anyone behind them to catch it either. Is there no urgency?
For most people, it appears the answer is NO, there is no urgency. The unspoken motto seems to be, “We’ll get there when we get there. Why rush? Also, the world revolves around me, so good luck passing on the left.”
If your default mode is human traffic cone, I have a message for you: 1) Good on ya for having time to spare, 2) You’re missing a chance to move your body, 3) GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY! and 4) You’re not just clogging up the airport, you’re probably doing the same thing in your own life.
If you don’t use it, you lose it
Walking, stairs, bending down, standing back up—all that stuff gets harder because we stop doing them. Muscles atrophy. Joints stiffen. Even the most basic movements become uncomfortable, so we avoid them… which makes things even worse.
It’s a downward spiral. The less you move, the less you can move.
If you are finding what should be easy movements that our bodies are built to do challenging, that is your body telling you that you actually need to do MORE of that thing.
Drinking coffee while sitting cross-legged on the floor
Case in point: Playing with my kids one day, I sat on the floor and became very uncomfortable after mere minutes. Remember when you were a kid and could sit cross-legged on the floor for hours? I remember that too. The problem isn’t age, its habits. Years of comfy chairs, sofas and beds made me soft. My legs, core, back muscles and joints became unaccustomed to this most basic style of sitting. Standing up after sitting on the floor also became unreasonably difficult. If this sounds familiar, I have a simple solution. Sit on the floor.
Once I realized that sitting on the floor was getting uncomfortable when I knew it shouldn’t be, I recognized I wanted to do something to reverse the situation. My hack? I drink coffee in the morning and read the news. Now I do that routine while sitting on the floor. Sometimes I stretch between gulps or articles. That one little shift made countless improvements in how my body feels all day long.
Now I look forward to coffee on the floor. It’s like hitting a reset button for my body every morning.
Why are people moving so slow?
Because moving is hard for them. And it’s hard because they don’t move. That’s why we’ve gone from 17% of Americans being obese in the 1970s to over 40% today. Add in “overweight” and you’re looking at more than 70% of the country.
Think about it: people who swear they’re “so busy” somehow find endless opportunities to stand perfectly still—on escalators, on moving walkways, anywhere possible. “Walk” for many has become a four-letter word.
Healthy people move. They look for excuses to move. If you want to be one of them, you don’t have to train for a marathon. You just have to stop opting out of the basics.
A Lesson in Urgency (From a Fortune 500 CEO)
Hamid Moghadam is the CEO and co-founder of Prologis, the largest owner of industrial real estate in the world. I had the pleasure of working for Hamid for 3 years. His company is one of the best run I have ever seen and that includes working at Berkshire Hathaway.
At one point Hamid thought people within the company were getting a little too complacent, a little too analytical, too slow, a bit too corporate in our decision making. He sent an email to the entire company that basically said: “Stop overanalyzing, move faster, perfection is not required for most things. Every delayed decision steals from tomorrow.”
That stuck with me. Urgency is a choice. Like any muscle, it can be trained.
When to move fast (and when to chill)
Here’s my take:
At work: Crush your to-do list quickly so you can enjoy the downtime guilt-free.
In your personal life: Very few things need to be perfect. Make them good enough, get them done, and move on. Find excuses to move whenever and wherever you can.
At the airport: MOVE until you hit your gate or the airline club, then put your feet up like a champ.
See you on the stairs,
Jared
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And another thing! A couple extra helpings of Wisdumb.
How AI can help get you to your ideal weight
AI has made getting to your ideal weight so much easier since the first thing we need is to have a roadmap to our destination. Go to ChatGPT and use this prompt, “I am a [age] year old [male/female]. I’m [height] and weigh [x] pounds. My target weight is [x] pounds. How many calories can I have per day if I average [x] minutes of [light / moderate / heavy] exercise per day? Put together a meal plan for this target weight.”
ChatGPT will give you the target amount of calories you can consume daily to get to your desired weight and even give you a meal plan you can follow. You can then add further details to refine your meal plan so its customized for you. For instance, I like to have yoghurt and granola for breakfast and a protein bar for morning snack so put in the things you want to have for each meal and let ChatGPT make a plan that works for you.
Jim Gaffigan on escalators: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/16vZKpGJqH/
Love it! I’m going to try to drink some tea while sitting on the floor. People also probably need to do more floor exercises. I watch a Japanese reality show where the men sit on the floor a lot. The women sit on the couch. I wonder if it’s for health reasons at all!