Touch Pads Are Evil

For the last four or five months my shoulder, elbow, and sometimes the muscles going down the right side of my spine have been in pain.  The level of pain has not been constant, but the pain itself has.  I have not been able to do cow-face pose

for this entire period of time, or at least not with my right arm being the lower arm.  This really bummed me out because the last time I was dealing with this type of pain (on the left side though) cow-face pose was the cure.  Everything I tried to get rid of the pain was useless.

Then I went back to work at Mammoth Cave.  Miles of walking every day (plus the bike ride into work) made me feel pretty tired, but the pain in my shoulder started to subside almost immediately!  What brought about this miracle cure?  Less time in front of my computer.

I love my laptop.  It is sleek and powerful.  It has a way better memory than me, and its touchpad is smooth and pleasant to the touch.  But.  When I am sitting at a laptop with a touchpad I tend to sit with my hand cocked and ready at all times. 

Like the left hand of  the girl in this picture but with my hand just a little higher. 

It is difficult to break the habit.

In times past I have made use of my laptop primarily on my lap. This was the time that my left side went kablooey.  I was balancing the computer with a slight constant tension from my left hand. 

What all of this speaks to is balance.  The smallest thing can throw our bodies, our lives, our households, our countries, or even our worlds out of balance.  If you think of all of the tensions, both small and large we have placed on our environment, it's no wonder it feels like everything is falling apart.  We can change our bad habits though.  Just as I am focusing on my right arm when I am not making immediate use of my touchpad and being certain to relax it, (by the way, if your hand is cocked to scroll down the page, lay it on your lap and rest it) we as a society can begin to do the little things we need to do to bring our environment back into balance.  We can drive less by combining trips, we can consume less by curtailing our lifestyles to live within our means, we can begin to heal the earth by acts as simple as starting a compost pile.

It is not impossible.