What If

Below is an exhilarating amateur video from a contest at Mark's Daily Apple, a really good website for "primal" living, that is, basic exercise and real food. There were many fine entries in their contest, but this one especially caught my eye.
 
What's so uplifting about it, beyond just a great song to accompany it, is you see a guy breaking out of the the confines of an office to set his body free. Many of think of exercise as a trip to the gym, a special space set aside to exert your body. But no matter how well-equipped, nothing you do on a machine will match a total body workout like he demonstrates or provide the Vitamin D he gets outside.

It would be a better, healthier, less stressed world if more people felt free (as in it's ok and they aren't weird) to take off their ties and high heels and go to a park for some exercise. Right now it's acceptable to run, but not so much the norm to exercise anywhere and anytime, and turn objects in the environment into a physical challenge.

They guy in the video is really creative. All he needs is a patch of grass, a weight from the trunk of his car, a bag with something heavy in it, his own body weight, and even a playground or some broken concrete.

This is what the world would be like if health really was a priority. We'd build more playgrounds for adults to use, too. Your employer would give you time to get out of the building and do some short Tabata workouts, like the one in the video, that would make you more focused and productive at work.

 

Yes, it would be different. People would value what they feel on the inside as much as what they look like from the outside. Sure people would be a little more rumpled upon returning to their office cubicles, but that's no big deal, nothing that couldn't be cured with a dab of perfume or aftershave.

 

And everyone would be thinner, healthier, happier.