Day 24 - Numbers

 NUMBERS

Prompt - Numbers : Write a poem or journal entry about numbers that have special meaning to you.

365

750

11000

12000

Different numbers acquire different meanings, and importance, at different stages of our lives.  Times, dates, ages.  Identifying numbers, bank accounts, addresses, phone numbers, road numbers.   So many aspects of our lives are numerically linked, defined, measured.  

Of course I still have many of those in my everyday life.  But the figures that much of my daily existence revolve around are the four set out above, and they all play a big role in maintaining my physical and mental health during these strange pandemic times.

Physically, while I try to do some stretches and exercises every morning, maybe even lift a few weights, my fitness, such as it is, largely comes from walking.  I can't really run any more (I might try running for a bus, but there isn't even that possibility in lockdown) due to knee and breathing annoyances, but my body benefits from getting out every day and putting in a few miles.  Or even just keeping moving a lot when at home.  And the primary incentive to do so comes from those two larger numbers.  My fitness tracker is set to a target of 11000 steps per day.  But I will usually try to do more than that, the 12000 target being the average number of daily steps I want to record at the end of each month.  (Much easier once Spring and Summer come and I do some serious mileage to prepare myself for Kiltwalk.)

And here's the first importance of the smallest of my quartet.  Driving me to do the 11k each and every day is an aim to record a streak of 365 days.  As I type this that streak figure is at 227 days, so there's still a few months to get to my target.

My mental health benefits from a lot of activities, not least reading for good chunk of time each day.  But it's writing that feels like it benefits me most.  A daily diary entry at day close, but there's also a piece of writing which can take several forms.  Sometimes it can be little more than a stream of consciousness mind dump, some days that's all I'm capable of.  But every day I type it, whatever 'it' is, into the 750words.com site.  Which, obviously, requires me to type in at least 750 words.  This too records a streak for the number of consecutive days that objective has been met.  Currently at 1110.

That's a lot of words, buy few of them get to be seen by anyone else.  In an effort to start writing things that might be a bit more interesting to others, and to stretch my own creativity, This year has seen me take on a 365 challenge.  I found a prompt list of subjects for every day for a year and will do my best to work through them, one by one, and see what comes out the other end.  So far there have been stories and poems and thought pieces.  And this, whatever you might call it.  

Some days I do 'just enough', on others I make more effort.  Depends on how I'm feeling, and how much time is available to me - those pesky numbers dominating again.  But it's already something I can feel the benefit from, stimulating my brain to go down pathways it doesn't normally follow.  

So I have daily challenges, and those feed into 365 day long undertakings that keep me and my motivation going.  I'm lucky to be one of those people who find hitting these numerical targets provides the impetus needed to keep on going.  Life enhancing numbers.