I rose early this morning to exercise, and I felt so alive, so human, when I returned home. There’s something fundamentally human about awakening at dawn and exerting full energy first thing in the morning. It’s ancestral. It’s how we have evolved over the past 2 million years. We are born to move.

Perhaps this simple yet profound characteristic shapes us more than we know. How many of our larger problems can be attributed to a first world sedentary lifestyle, our poor diets and diminished mental health? Maybe if we get collectively healthier, mind body and soul, we’ll have more will, more energy, and more solutions to offer to our current problems.

We need to feel alive, to feel human. If we feel these things, we truly live. And that takes care of everything else.