A tiger in a cage can never see the sun

As a part of my mentoring group, we are all being asked to walk 10,000 steps a day.

10,000 steps a day is hard!

The days when I work out or have practice I can make double that. But the days when I’m at work all day and go home to make dinner and go to bed (or play computer games and watch TV), mean that I’ll only get in 4 or 5,000 steps. The purpose of the steps isn’t just to be healthy, it’s to set a goal for yourself and feel accomplished by meeting it EVERY DAY. Which makes it frustrating when you don’t.

We had a big event on Monday, filled with important people and congress people and such. Since I was on my feet all day, I skipped spin class that night in order to pass out on the couch while watching Jem and the Holograms. When Brian came home, I was only at 7,500 steps. I got a few more in by making dinner and picking up the apartment, but I was still off by 2,000. What to do? I had promised that we would watch one of our shows before bed, but I also really wanted to get my steps in.

So I did what seemed perfectly logical. I paced back and forth across our living room while watching TV with Brian (don’t worry, I paced next to the TV, not in front of it—what do you think I am, crazy?). And I didn’t pace leisurely, I walked rapidly in an oval over and over. Brian has learned to tune out my odd activities and continued to watch the show till it ended. With 10,000 steps on my pedometer, I went to sleep mightily accomplished for the day.

The next evening, I was at about 4,000 steps. Tuesday is not the day I go to the gym so there was little hope of bringing the number up. Brian asked if I was going to walk around the apartment again. While asking, he suddenly hit on a perfect visual to accompany my behavior. With both the excitement of a perfect simile and the sadness of speaking to a crazy person he said “Do we need to make a little path for you, like they do for the bears in the zoo?”