So, I didn't have much motivation to spend time with anyone but myself during idle time (which there wasn't much of outside of coursework), but this was especially true during years 1-3. Considering that, Starkville isn't anything more than a small Mississippi university town. Other than a very picturesque cemetery that's not too far from campus, there were no parks, topographical landmarks or such. Plain, boring, efficient, flat. These were all words that described where I lived at the time. Monotonous to say the least. (Though very safe and efficient!)
So, during my time away from the architecture building (Friday nights and Sunday afternoons) with the exception of football Saturdays (I marched in the Maroon Band), I'd take long walks. My Friday night walks would usually start in a car lot in town with a frozen yogurt in hand, but my Sunday afternoon walks, in contrast, would begin at the rear door of my dorm building, headed south through a then open field.
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I wasn't athletic at all during this period of my life despite my youth. I'd headed to college immediately following high school, but had never played any team sports (band geek). So, walking was all I really knew how to do in terms of intentional physical activity (other than masturbating!).
And it became a wonderful hobby to nurture.
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Today, I serve a number of business owner clients as their group insurance broker and / or their 401(k) plan advisor. I enjoy working with business owners, with my primary focus being consulting engineers. Engineers are the next of kin to us architects, also having endured grueling higher learning curriculums at some accredited institution. I do, as well, serve some individual clients, but mostly my focus has been on engineering firms.
So, on my clients' behalf, it's important that I keep a pulse on the economy.
To summarize where we're at today with this pandemic, let me be frank.
Economically, our world has officially been frozen in so many sectors. And this has occurred seemingly overnight. And the longer the economy stays frozen, the harder it will be to melt it.
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I've written here (I think) about Angie's (my wife) shoulder injury that occurred back in January. Just a few weeks back, she diagnosed herself as having frozen shoulder. Essentially, this occurs mainly in women (about 2%) who experience injury that then requires the arm to be immobile (in a sling) for an extended period of time during healing. Frozen shoulder is a shoulder that won't move but a fraction of what it should / did. It's as if it's literally locked up. At first, she thought her arm was broken, but the pain-free movement is there to discount that (along with an x-ray). Instead, due to the inflammation and aforementioned extended non-movement, the ball joint in her shoulder is literally frozen up. And believe me when I say, it ain't moving except within a small fraction of her original range of motion.
What's sobering about this reality is it could take up to two years for her shoulder to completely thaw, again allowing her to move it within the full range of motion as before. Hence, our lives here will look very different 'till that occurs.
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Our economy is exactly as vulnerable to this longstanding freezing, and it's all hinged on how long we as consumers refuse / are motivated to not consume (due to the quarantine). Each and every day that passes, we become more and more comfortable to our "new normal", and we don't even realize it's happening.
What makes us humans so very human is our ability to adapt to almost any conceivable circumstance. In doing so, we expend an enormous amount of effort (& for this we're often quite self-congratulatory), therefore reverting back to our previous selves / ways / patterns is at times neither appealing nor seemingly worth the effort.
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Two years is what we're up against here - at a minimum. Both in regards to my sweet wife's shoulder as well as our economic outlook. Therefore, do yourself a favor. Walk. Long. Distances. Enjoy the Spring weather either during the day or at night. Set a course and go.
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| Remember, though you may feel confined to the blender, you do have an opportunity to walk it out. |
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