I was never this tan…or this fit…or this adventurous…but this video makes me wonder…”where’s my cameraman?”.

That’s the thing about these videos…we never celebrate the guy behind the camera…chasing the tan guy up the mountain.

He doesn’t get any props.

But back to me.

Where’s my cameraman?  I could plop him down in the back of the mail jeep, he could film me opening mail boxes and putting mail into them (it’s more exciting than I make it sound)….both of us turning into public service mushrooms after years of sedentary work.

It would be a long film…but it would be a good one if you could hang with it.

This video reminds me that we’re really designed to be “good animals”…worked hard and doing something out in the world.

Outside in the world.

Now, my job does get me outside.  As jobs go, it’s pretty cool…big box of dog bones, open window, working windshield wipers, new axle u-joints, a sandwich for lunch, a full tank of gas…and I’m good to go.  Oh…and don’t forget to put the mail in the Jeep before I head out…it’s a big part of the job.

The thing about my job, though, is that I sit.  I sit and drive.

They say that sitting is one of the most damaging things you can do…like your life is shortened by 20 minutes for every hour you sit or something like that.  Man….that really stinks.  Surely it can’t be 20 minutes?  My time is short if that’s the case.  That really stinks.

I don’t know if we get any extra longevity credits for delivering an express package.

I don’t know what we get longevity credits for.

The weird thing about newfound sedentary lifestyles is that the less I work my body, the more I hurt.  Aches and pains, tightening…you’d think that not working something would allow it to settle into a slack limberness…but it just seems to torque down to a new tightness.

I do know that our bodies are very adaptable.  We become what we need to become to do the task at hand.  I feel more and more like the mushroom mail man….sprouted on the front seat of a right hand drive mail jeep, a powerful and unbalanced right arm and shoulder for opening mailboxes, everything else going farther and farther over into the unfit dark side.

But, like Martin Luther King, Jr….I have seen the mountaintop.  I remember what that feels like to be running up a hill.  I just need to get out of the Jeep every once in a while and strap on the running shoes.

 

Only watching a tan guy run up a mountain doesn’t get me any closer to the top of the hill, though.