I have been walking. My belly fat makes me look like I’m about to give birth to a baby elephant that I feel like I need to keep walking. I set a target of 10,000 steps every day and if I don’t reach that target, I add the steps that I missed and use my Saturdays to try to complete 70,000 steps for the week.

Hello and welcome to RA vs the World, where every weeknight, I post about mundane stuff in 500 words or less.

As I am writing this tonight, my health monitor is showing me that I have walked 9,067 steps today. Most of those could have been miscounted by the app because I saw it counting “steps” even though I was inside a jeepney. I’ll ignore that mistake but don’t tell my belly fat.

I find peace while walking. It boosts my mood. Apparently, during exercise, our brain produces more endorphins, the “feel-good” neurotransmitters. My friend Earl has this photowalk group called Tara Photowalk Tayo (find the page on Facebook), and hopefully, one of these weekends, I’d be able to join them. While I was walking with my nephew last Saturday, I took these photos. I have altered their colors using a filter.

When you do a simple Google search, all the internet will tell you is that walking is good for your health. There’s almost no discussion about the benefits if we all just collectively walk.

If a place or an area is “well-walked,” this will help authorities to build better infrastructures for pedestrians. They will also be encouraged to build parks and spaces for nature.

Local business in “well-walked” areas will thrive. If there aren’t enough local business, keep on walking and soon there will be a flourishing economy or a tourism activity there.

A lot of noise and air pollution come from cars, so walking would reduce both. I don’t mean that we should get rid of all cars. I understand some people need four wheels to go to and from work. But hopefully, future mass transport won’t necessitate that anymore.

I only have less than a few words left, and there are many other benefits of walking like the promotion of cultural and civic pride. But of all the benefits of walking, I guess the most important is that this will be most beneficial to people with disabilities.

As earlier stated, there will be better infrastructures for pedestrian if we will just walk. Many place would be more accessible to people with disabilities. It would be easier for them to move around. Aside from that, they’d also benefit from the natural physical therapy.

However, one thing makes all this very difficult to achieve. I recognize that the climate crisis makes it hard to move around. But then again, it’s like the chicken and egg dilemma. We walk, green spaces are built, the climate crisis is forever defeated (maybe not, but you get the idea), and then we walk some more.