Osteopaths and undertakers

I work in a real "here today, gone tomorrow" business: SEO.

You'll no doubt be glad - if you know anything about that benighted industry - that I hereby promise never to write about SEO on my blog.

Nor will I post links to other people's posts saying "this is interesting" in the mistaken belief that this makes me erudite by association.

In this field of activity, you have to constantly change what you're doing to adjust to the internet's ever-evolving standards. The wayside is strewn with the bodies of companies that didn't do that.

And if Google ever got sick of us, well, they've pretty much got the power to shut the whole sector down overnight.

In my dreams, this happens.

Last night, I went to the osteopath. Turns out I have lordosis and bad posture, which is causing me lower back pain.

A mauling later, it occurred to me that dealing with back pain has got to be right up there with undertakers and insolvency practitioners as one line of work that is never going to be short of customers.

More and more of us spend upward of 40 hours a week sitting at PCs at work, and then spend a good portion of the time we're at home sitting at PCs or other screen-based media.

We get our exercise going to gyms which encourage us to do everything wrong – by loading more and more weight onto machines without regard to technique. As such, we're probably using completely the wrong muscles to lift it by any means necessary.

I suppose there are members of staff there who are supposed to help you... well, at my gym they all just stand around talking to each other and making the customer feel bad about themselves. Maybe it's different elsewhere.

Plus, when you go to the gym, typically you'll do something completely destructive – like go in and wildly overwork some muscles you never use, then be laid up for two weeks getting over it. Alternatively, you come out and scoff double the calories you've just burned off because you think you've earned it.

And when I say "we", "us" and "you", I mean of course "me". This blog is all about me.

I've always found people with "bad backs" who have not worked in coal mining or stone quarrying or otherwise actually injured themselves a little bit contemptible. Now I'm on the brink of turning into one of them.

I hereby commit to sorting out my posture. If any of you see me slouching, prod me sharply. And if I can't manage that, I'm going to retrain and become an osteopath – an osteopath whose website is number one in Google.