Member-only story
Why Walking Will Make You More Productive and Creative
Philosophers, Writers, and Scientists Agree
This past October, I took the 30 Day Stoic Challenge. Each day, participants were given a new challenge to complete based on Stoic Philosophy. One of the first ones was to take an hour long walk. Simple enough. I took an hour long walk that night after reading about what the Stoics said about it and why they recommend doing it.
That night was the first of 30 consecutive evening walks that I took. Then I continued for the month of November. The evening walk became a source of joy and contemplation for me. It became a wind down at the end of the day to reflect and ground myself. It became something I looked forward to.
This was an odd thing for me as for most of my adult life I have viewed walking as one of the more inefficient means of travel. When it came to exercise I viewed it as a step above useless. If I was going to exercise, I wanted to sweat and be challenged. There were far more forms of movement that gave me more bang for my buck. In fact, I would often find myself running when I had to walk any distance greater than 1/2 mile. I just couldn’t help but think how much faster I would get there if I was running.
In fact, on my first meditation retreat, I found myself…
