Sunday, November 07, 2004

 

A Great Excuse to Sit on Your Arse

A grad student here on campus was hit and killed by a mass transit bus a few weeks ago, and now my friend uses this as an excuse to not walk in the campus town area. "I feel safer in my car."

I'll quote Dr. Grimm (and imagine my arms flapping): LIFE IS FULL OF RISK. You can slip and break your neck walking down the stairs, but if you take the elevator, not only do you increase your risk for diabetes and heart disease by avoiding exercise--but also, the elevator could jam or fall off its cables! In your car, you run the risk of hitting a pedestrian (especially if you drive like my friend--hee hee), and you can still get into a serious accident with another vehicle, or a telephone pole, or tree. Hell, you could choke on a garlic breadstick at the Olive Garden--so does this mean you should stop doing everything you enjoy?

If we cannot even take a walk on a nice evening because we're afraid, what's the point of living? Instead of making excuses, we can limit our risks by walking down a safer side-street, being defensive pedestrians, and most importantly, being courteous and careful drivers wheh we're in the driver's seat.

I'll say it again: We, as a nation, need to be more conservative about our gas use--unless we wish to make a mockery of all the folks sacrificing their lives in the Mid-East (I sure as hell hope they're not fighting for our "freedom" from high gas prices just so we can be lazy and wasteful).

We need to get off our lazy, frightened asses. We need to enjoy the weather and the serendipitous interaction we have with other pedestrians when we walk. If we're lucky enough to have a nice neighborhood with services within walking distance, we should take advantage of the opportunities.

I think the "risk" excuse for avoiding simple, healthy, enjoyable activities such as walking is absolutely lame, and I think it is little more than an excuse, so to put things in perspective, I've come up with a list of all sorts of everyday things, healthy and unhealthy, that come with risks and benefits:

Pleasure: Walking, running, biking
Risks: Getting hit by car, spraining ankle
Benefits: health, interaction with others, discovery of your surroundings, free transportation, reduced emissions, reduced reliance on foriegn oil

Pleasure: Driving
Risks: Expensive, can get flattened by semi-truck, can kill biker, walker, runner with deadly 2-tons of steel, can become lazy and dependent on vehicle, foriegn oil
Benefits: convenience, speed, control of your comings-and-goings, airbags

Pleasure: ice cream drinks, crab rangoon, french fries, pizza, fried egg and bacon sammitches from Mickey D's
Risks: Obesity, diabetes, artherosclerosis, can be expensive habit
Benefits: tastes good, convenient

Pleasure: Reading
Risks: Eye strain
Benefits: Education, entertainment, often free via local library

Pleasure: Friendship
Risks: High phone bills, fights, gossip, bad advice
Benefits: Fun, good conversation, mind expansion, unconditional acceptance, laughs, good advice

Pleasure: Dating
Risks: getting rejected, hurting someone else, meeting jerks, stalkers
Benefits: Fun diversion, companionship, entertainment, free backrubs, spooning

Pleasure: Working with animals
Risks: getting your face bitten off, getting your spine cracked in half with one strong kick, catching an incurable, deadly parasite or disease, being overworked, underappreciated, underpaid
Benefits: . . .oh no. . . now I forget. . .

Pleasure: Speaking your mind
Risks: pissing someone off, embarrassing yourself
Benefits: Being honest, saying what a million others are thinking

. . and there's plenty of others that I don't have time to think of now, because it's a beautiful morning, and I'm going for a walk!

Any other risks that y'all can think of?

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