This episode is not going to finish where it begins.

Welcome to Walking is Fitness.

This is a podcast of action providing a little extra motivation to help you keep that fitness promise you made to yourself.

Hi, I'm Dave. I've been walking for fitness since 2013, averaging about 21,000

steps a day. I'm walking right now and would love to have you join me for the next 10 minutes.

I've been taking a lot of silent walks lately.

And what I mean by that is no music, no podcasts, no audiobooks,

just me and the sounds around me.

Oftentimes it's sounds of nature. Of course, there are sounds of traffic.

Airplanes flying overhead or taking off from the nearby airport.

I've enjoyed walking with nothing going on in my ears other than natural sound.

And last night as I was sitting on the back patio thinking about what today's episode

would be about, I was landing on this idea of the beauty of silence.

The beauty of just walking and letting my thoughts go where they may

or not thinking about anything at all.

And as I tend to do, I started being a little more

introspective and asking myself, why? Why am I enjoying these walks in silence.

What is it about maybe where I am right now in life

that is causing me to enjoy this more and do this more?

And I was thinking through and thinking about that.

Then it occurred to me, I don't know that this is actually what I'm choosing because it's my preference.

And I realized that on most mornings, most times when I head out to take a walk, I'm actually scanning my podcast app for an episode of a podcast that I enjoy to listen to.

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