Contains: Introspection, Advice, Comfort
Honestly this isn't what I intended to write for this SFW audio, but sometimes, the muses hit, and you just gotta follow them. I've also been quite contemplative lately, and I hope that this audio resonates with someone, and helps them. 💚
~Audio Transcript Below~
Sometimes, you just gotta go on a walk.
I know personally that I should go on more walks, because as daft as it may seem, they really do help my mental and physical health.
Over the past year and a half, I've been walking more, taking things a bit slower, trying to disconnect from the digital world a bit more, especially considering I spend a lot of time in it due to my job. I don't tend to go a lot of places, and there are times where I realize that I haven't been outside of the house for longer than to go to the grocery store or to get my mail in....weeks. And even if in the moment I'm not feeling it, those are the times when I usually strap my shoes on and take my dog out and walk; not with any real destination in mind, mostly to get out in the sun, breathe some outside air, and now--especially since it's almost summer--enjoy the nature that's around me. There hasn't ever been a time where I've regretted going on the walk by the time I get home, and far more often than not, I feel better than I did when I left.
Usually I'll put my headphones in, put on some music or a podcast and just go, let my mind wander as my feet do the same. I let myself walk however my body wants to, fast, slow, or somewhere in between, and decide what streets to walk down, which turns to take as I go. All the while, I take the time to try to look...to absorb the world around me.
In a society--at least in my country--where working yourself to the bone, trying to "get ahead", being tethered to internet and social media, and being constantly plugged in and aware of all of the other shit that's going on globally is commonplace, I've found more and more that it's important to unplug yourself from it from time to time. Give yourself a refresh, actually go outside and touch grass, and not just in the online insulting way that's become commonplace now.
Maybe it makes me sound like an old hippie, but whenever I'm out on these walks, I try to really slow down, take in information, actually enjoy the world around me and participate in it, instead of trying to go through it, or treat it like an obstacle to another destination. I walk by houses and under trees where you can feel the temperature difference as it shades you from the sun. I see plants and colors and porches with chairs and decorations on them. I see dogs and children in front yards and cats in windows, and on the days where I don't wear headphones---or only have one in if I'm honest--I hear birds, and traffic and music and just signs of people, people who have their own entire lives that I know nothing about, and that's amazing to me. I feel like it's helped me come down to Earth a little bit, instead of being stuck in my own mind, or stuck in the digital world. It's made me more empathetic I think too, to realize that yes, most people I come in contact with on a daily basis I don't know anything about, but that means I should be more kind, more empathetic, because you don't know what's going on in everyone's lives, and while society may claim that the world is cruel, I won't be.
On top of all that it's also just, you know, physically good to walk, to move your body, to get out and get some Vitamin D from the Sun, to breathe fresh air, to work up a bit of a sweat if it's hot enough, even if you don't like the feeling of sweating , like me. "If you don't use it, you'll lose it" is an idea I've come to respect, and as the steward of my body, I'm trying to get better at maintaining it as best as I can, so that I can continue to enjoy it in the future for as long as I possibly can.
I know not everyone is lucky like me to live in a place with beautiful nature to walk through, or are able bodied enough to go on walks, but whatever way you can get outside, I please encourage you to do it, because even though it sounds like bullshit, being outside even for only minutes a day can help, and I feel like maybe, if we all tried to do it a bit more, we would be better off as a whole.
Perhaps that's just wishful thinking, perhaps I'm naive, but I think this--what I'm talking about now and what I've been doing--is all in the effort of slowing down, being a more active participant in my own life and not allowing myself to sit at home and rot, be it because I'm doom scrolling or having a mental health low or anything else. I don't want to lose my empathy, lose my sanity or my whimsy or my love for the world and the people in it, despite the horrors that persist around us. I'm trying to strike a balance between informed and unplugged, because I don't want to turn a blind eye. I don't want to drive myself to hopelessness by the constant bombardment of information that the digital world gives and also forces on us so that I can continue to be informed, and continue to care and persist. I don't want to look back on my life in the future and wish I had done more to take care of myself when I could. So I put my shoes on, and I go for a walk, because at the end of the day......it's never just a walk.