Thurber is not smart. A pea brain, Rene, the dog whisperer says, and I don’t mean that as a sign of disrespect. Remember, you are not appealing to the brain when you want him to do something. Instead, you find something he likes, say bits of Reggiano block cheese, and with select, simple phrases you shape Thurber’s behavior around the health and welfare of the home to the best advantage of all. “Treat” him well and he will live a long and happy life with you, not the dog, in charge.
Are people any different? How many times have I heard from a friend that she plans soon to take up running, or any serious regiment of exercise, only to digress and fail to do it. The magazines and self-help books start by telling you to set a goal and stick to it. But how so, when there is so much to do in our lives and so little time. In 2009, 467,000 people finished a marathon in the United States, according to "Long May You Run," a coffee table book and Christmas gift list wannabe for runners. Sure, I’m biased, but if you were to ask the question, how many Americans would like to have the feeling of running in and finishing a marathon, that number would surely be in the many, many millions.
So, how to get started. I wrote about this back in July (see my blog archives, at lower right). But this idea of “treating” deserves a word. With Thurber, it’s easy: bacon/liver treats, cheese, cooked chicken slivers will do the trick. Why does it work so well? Because it really is a treat – he gets what he loves the most when he performs well – and only then is he rewarded.
All of this may be unfair to say, to expect. It’s not a point of pride for me to say that I’m wired for naught. When I was growing up, we weren’t poor, but I valued simple things. At nine, after a real treat: an eighty-mile motor trip to visit prized relatives in Guelph, Ontario, I took as a keepsake from their paved lane a smooth pebble that I kept on my dresser top for years. At Halloween, I’d stow my cache of candy in the bottom drawer of that dresser until they became too stale to eat, and later, in college, I chose to specialize in finance reporting, rather than in the arts which was closer to where my interests lay, because I reckoned that having business expertise would be good for me, would make me more well-rounded, more fit.
The tao of rewards is class- and race-neutral. In fact, it might be harder to manage a reward approach to fitness if you are as wealthy as, say, Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs. If you are in the habit of not denying yourself anything, how do you differentiate between the everyday and a special treat? What, my dad used to say as a joke, “I’m so great, it’s hard to be humble.” Fitness in the brash ruling class is based less on the tao of rewards then the raw feeding of the ego, in which the servant class pays homage. The boss keeps fit; the boss has his dinner prepared; the boss’ dog gets groomed.
For the poor, you’d think the simplest of rewards would do. As a young editor it seemed easy. When I worked nights at the Windsor Star I ran hard, sometimes pushing myself out of a comfort zone, with the idea that once at home I’d pour myself a Molson Export, and crank up Stevie Wonder’s “I Wish” from “Songs in the Key of Life” on the stereo. In those days I had very little, but after my experiences a decade ago in hospital (See Running for Your Life: The Hospital Story, in August) I was determined to stay healthy and fit. And setting up a little reward for my efforts, did the trick for me.
But what about this link in America today between unfitness and poverty. Doesn’t the tao of rewards break down as the income gap widens? Doesn't the very idea of trying to achieve a high level of fitness carry with it more than a whiff of elitism?
The current Newsweek’s cover is “What Food Says About Class in America.” In it, the writer Lisa Miller hangs the piece on recent Ag data showing 17 percent of Americans — more than 50 million people — live in households that are “food insecure.” That means a family sometimes runs out of money to buy food, or runs out of food before it gets more money.
And while people in my wage bracket can afford to buy the freshest and healthiest produce in Brooklyn’s ultra-expensive farmer’s markets, many folks who live a light jog away, on the other side of Prospect Park, often eat what they can: mass-produced foods like pizza and packaged cakes that satisfy their appetites, yes, but make it much more difficult to keep fat off, often at the earliest age when so many of our tendencies are set, and where a life of lean, food-conscious fitness seems light years, not across-the-park, away.
So is there a tao of rewards for the “food insecure?” In America, it seems, the Oprah answer to the question, “How big is your dream?” In my case, a part of me is still a little boy with not a lot of means who picked up a pebble in a small city driveway, set on the idea that I could travel, I could get away and chase my dreams. Others have more entrenched obstacles, wider gaps to traverse. I, too, have learned a lot from coming back from being very sick to living a life that values health while trying to set a good example. I'd like to think that there are many roads to fitness, and in my life, they have been guided by such things as the tao of rewards.
When Thurber and I finish our alternate-day run in the park, he comes to know precisely our finish line, a bench just north of Prospect Park West and First Street, a bench where he comes to me, and I whisper praises -- we have been out for more than a hour, running without stopping. He puts his nose down on my leg, apparently grateful for my petting, and a minute later, usually no more, no less, I reach in my treat bag and offer him a morsel of Reggiano cheese. Is he happy? I don't know. But I am. That is my reward.
Next: Running for Your Life: Loose Leafs
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