Cultivation

This isn’t about why you should take my six-week class on exercise, stretch, imagery, and strategy for desk-sitters and computer users. You already know. Well-being isn’t automatic. Health requires self-cultivation.

A significant proportion of injuries in our culture have to do with sitting specifically, and an even more significant proportion with not moving in general. If your life circumstances require you to sit and limit your movement for long periods, then you need to move in your free time to be healthy.

Most desk jobs don’t happen on farms. Nonetheless, your employer is cultivating you. They’ve potted you in a particular location with a certain amount of light, space, nutrition, and mobility to harvest something they need from you. You also enjoy a yieldfrom the exchange, which turns out to be a matter of mutual cultivation.

 

Some of us have more power over how we’re potted by our employers. Desk setup is an example. The freedom to re-pot yourself into a better chair, desk, and/or computer setup is a privilege and shouldn’t be squandered.

Many of us have little control over where and how we work, but even in that situation, there is hope because staying conscious changes everything. Maybe you’ve noticed that staying conscious is hard. Taking a class keeps you conscious.

How you will evolve, whether you and your workplace will thrive, is a matter of how well you manage small choices during your workday and big choices during the rest of your day and life. Everybody can use help with that.