Last time I saw my massage therapist I said to her, “so tell me, in your professional opinion, what lifestyle lends itself to the healthiest muscles?”

And she admitted that it was really hard to say. That every lifestyle had its muscle issues. “Maybe yoga instructors,” she said. “But no, actually, I’ve had a couple of yoga instructor clients and their bodies have their issues too.” We speculated that might be because those yoga instructors are still practicing in The West where there is a great deal of emphasis on performance and instructors especially need to perform at a certain level in order to keep their students’ trust.

I have been playing with the idea of setting up a standing work-station in our house. I said to Ian, “if there was one thing I could do that make the biggest change to my life expectancy, long-term health and fitness, that would probably be it. The single biggest factor that, right now, is contributing to the decline of my health is the amount of time my work has me sitting.”

Then I also said to my massage therapist, “I think maybe I should take the summer and not work much. But then I’d just be working on other projects that would be hard on my body. Bending and crawling in the garden, or wrenching nails out of reclaimed boards.”

“But that would be fantastic for you,” she said. “It’s not a certain position or activity that your body needs, it’s just motion.”

It’s a good point. But instead I have taken on a lot of work and will be spending my summer sitting after all.