[LeftHandPath]

The best way to make a happy, healthy person into an unhappy, unhealthy person is to keep them lonely and keep them still. It should come as no surprise that the inverse also tends to hold true.

On a tangent, I think that's part of why volunteering can be so rewarding.

[busymom0]

> The best way to make a happy, healthy person into an unhappy, unhealthy person is to keep them lonely and keep them still.

That's pretty much what was done during the pandemic unfortunately.

[kccqzy]

There were no restrictions on running or biking in the pandemic. Quite the opposite. Because indoor entertainment venues like bars weren't available, I saw way more people embracing the outdoors.

[busymom0]

I am Canadian. Running, biking etc outdoor activities is impossible in our winters for 5-6 months of the year. Since gyms were closed, we also didn't have access to weight training which is also very essential.

[movingontonext]

Canadian here. This may be true for some (many) parts of Canada but certainly not all of Canada. For example, with proper gear you can run outdoors in Vancouver year-round. When I lived in the GTA, I routinely ran outdoors through late December and almost always resumed by mid-March.

Point being: dressing appropriately can extend your running season dramatically.

[busymom0]

Even in your example, there's a 4 month period where it's impossible. Snow + ice makes it dangerous to be running outside during winters. I have friends who run marathon and one has had knee surgeries and therefore afraid to run in even a little bit of ice.

[star-glider]

Beaches, parks, and playgrounds were routinely closed. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/nyregion/coronavirus-nyc-... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/01/us/newsom-beach-closing-c...

[siva7]

> The best way to make a happy, healthy person into an unhappy, unhealthy person is to keep them lonely and keep them still.

So becoming a software developer?

[Aurornis]

Most non-freelance software development I’ve done has been a group effort.

I’ve met a lot of my gym partners, biking friends, and climbing friends through software work.

[LeftHandPath]

Or taking up any white collar job! There's a reason I spend a lot of my free time swimming and hiking.

[to11mtm]

This is an interesting comment because I've lived a lot of sides of this.

At my first job (where I kinda 'weaseled' my way into doing software vs my job title) it was an incredibly collaborative experience. It started with finding ways to make tools that helped my colleagues do monotonous tasks faster. Which then evolved into fun dialogue. "Hey can you make a button to do X" and we'd get to talk about it, I'd hack the feature together, hit publish and wait for the team to give feedback. "Oh I got this error" I'd get up and walk over. It wasn't perfect but I was never lonely and only as still as I wanted to be.

At my second gig, It started a little lonely but thankfully the culture was just laid back enough I got to socialize (thankfully it was a shop full of fun and interesting people!).

Third gig, Uggh it was very 'heads down' for most of my time there, nobody liked small talk except the conspiracy theory guy. I learned a lot about what I did and didn't like in company culture there. It did get a little better before I left...

Fourth gig was a dream. It was the second place where I didn't just get to collaborate with my team, but the first place where it was a lot of software engineers. We even had a teams room for nothing but sharing music and it was always heartwarming to see a reply to some obscure tune and someone would reply with something that yes you would absolutely appreciate given what you originally posted. And it was hectic enough that I did get a reputation for being a 'floor runner'.

Fifth Gig... well it was 100% remote. And in fact one day I was so focused on a problem I sat in the wrong position too long and permanently fucked up my left ulnar nerve... But that was such a good group, and Ironically I was able to -take- the lessons from #4 and #2 and turned them into traditions that stuck around even after I left (hell even after they fired everyone, we kept doing the 'game night' for a while...)

Won't say anything about my current place, that's all still a work in progress <_<

[Etheryte]

Not that you asked, but physios have some great exercises for ulnar nerve issues, it might be worth seeing one if you haven't already.

[deadbabe]

No, they mitigate this by getting paid a lot of money.

[psyclobe]

Haha.. ouch.