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I was at the gym on New Year’s Eve and decided to do some step-ups to a box, maybe two feet high.

Left leg went well, then on fifth rep on right leg, I felt a twinge in my back. A click-click in my spine. I know it when it happens, which is about every 9-10 months (if you have back issues, you know the moment of which I type ). I had pinched the nerve in my spinal column and my workout was over. I needed to get home before I found out just how badly I had hurt myself.

Which was “moderately.” I’ve been in a lot of pain, and it had me hunched over when walking for the first 24 hours. It also shortens my gait, and makes it very difficult to find a comfortable position when I sit or recline. 

And … as the new year was starting, I wanted to take a moment and make an effort to take something from this experience. To hold it off and examine it. To see the opportunity in the discomfort.

So … what did the pain offer?

It offered me an opportunity to stop. I haven’t done a whole hell of a lot since it happened. I tried to fix a screen door in the garage, but did little more than re-screw what I un-screwed the day before hurting myself. So the door again (mostly) closes.

I read things and sent Happy New Year texts to friends and family.

I laid on the couch with a blanket on my legs and noticed how the sun occasionally cuts through the Jan. 1 clouds and comes through the window into our family room.

I noticed that the angina in my chest is less, because I exercised New Year’s Eve and got a good night’s sleep entering the new year. A bonus of injury on New Year’s Eve is you wake up on New Year’s morn sans hangover.

More broadly, I can see a path into a better year if only I’ll sit sometimes and make better use of my actions.  If I’ll set some intentions, not especially big ones, but ones I can accomplish. Ones that will make living better.

• Exercise daily, even if it’s “just” tai chi 3x a week. I’m unapologetically pro-movement. Always.
• Listen more, dissemble less (to myself and others).
• Read a book (or more) a month.
• Rein in our subscriptions. There’s a marketing adage, “Choice is the enemy of conversion.” Similarly, choice is the enemy of attention. The world is overwhelmed with choice. I need to be ruthless about my attention. I’m the only one who will. I have been unsubscribing like a maniac for 30 hours. I feel great!
• Learn to do something new with my hands. Could that be music? Might I borrow a friend’s guitar? Could it be the basics of cooking for myself and (gasp) for Virginia? The world is alive with possibility. I want to — I need to — hold that wriggling fish in my hands.

I am 59 years old. I have a lot to live for, and much I can do. I accept that I will not make a huge difference in this world, but I can do a part. My part. 

I want to do that. And deep down, I know where to begin. Right here. Writing this. This is the start.

I take that first painful, hunched, short step. I’m moving. It will get easier. That, I believe.

Into a new year.