Must be a pretty heady feeling to be in the Olympics. I assume everyone there has put in thousands and thousands of hard hours honing their craft, whether it be pole vaulting or ping pong. Which got me thinking – what have I spent thousands of hours doing in this life?
Well, besides sleeping, which even the athletes do, the next biggest item would have to be – sitting.
I’ve gotten pretty good at it. I very seldom fall out of my chair. My specialty is the slouch, fidget and lean, but I also sit freestyle. My signature move is to occasionally sit Indian-style – feet tucked under my legs.
And like anyone who’s been practicing their sport for years, I have paid a price. I have a lot of shoulder and neck problems, almost certainly due to the excessive amount of time I’ve spent sitting hunched over a keyboard.
No way could I possible compete with those runners and jumper and shooters on their turf or track. But then again, I doubt most of them could compete with me on my carpet. They’re so used to exercising I bet they’d have a really hard time going head to head, well, butt to butt, against me on a typical day. I doubt they could literally sit still that long.
My usual day starts with a short warm up sit for breakfast, followed by an hour or so at my home computer, sitting and writing things like this. Then I sit in my car and drive to work, where I sit at my desk seven hours, interrupted for a half hour sit in the lunch room, and occasionally the dreaded “sitting through a meeting.” Then another sit for the drive home.
Once home I usually meditate, which for obvious reasons is also known as “sitting practice.” Then it’s time to sit down for dinner. I used to then spend a few more hours sitting watching television, but in the last few years my stamina isn’t what it used to be, so now I often have to lie down. Yeah, getting old is tough.
That’s a usual day, but there are often other challenges thrown in, like sitting at the doctor’s office, or sitting through a movie or lecture, or going to my railroad club and sitting and looking at slides of box cars. Makes practicing wind sprints for a few hours almost seem like goofing off now, huh?
And it’s not just sitting I’ve gotten good at. I’m a really fast four fingered typist. I can mouse or trackball right and left handed. And talk about speed – I’ll go keyboard to keyboard with anyone on a Google search!
So yeah, I will watch and cheer for all those strong young athletes competing in London, but it’s not like I envy them. They have their perfected skills, and I have mine. And in another twenty or thirty years, when it’s time to sit around the nursing home, who do you think will be better prepared?
