They say grief has five stages. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.
Nobody told me getting a standing desk had stages too.
Stage 1: Denial
"I don't need a standing desk. My back is fine. I'm fine. Everything is fine."
This was me for approximately three years while slowly folding in half like a lawn chair left out in the rain. My wife would walk past my home office and occasionally say something like, "you look like a question mark." I told her it was my creative thinking posture. She did not agree.
Stage 2: Overconfidence
I finally get the desk. It arrives. I set it up with the energy of someone who just joined a gym in January. I am a new man. A tall man. A man with lumbar awareness.
I stand at my new desk for the first time, roll my shoulders back, and think: this is it. This is the turning point.
I lasted 11 minutes.
ELEVEN MINUTES.
My calves were on fire. My lower back — which had been on vacation for approximately a decade — sent me a strongly worded message. I sat back down in my chair and pretended nothing happened.
Stage 3: Bargaining
Okay. Maybe I stand for 10 minutes, sit for 50. That's still something, right? That's basically an athlete's recovery protocol. I'm basically a professional. I looked it up and I think they call this "interval training." I'm choosing to believe that.
Stage 4: The Public Commitment
I told people about the desk. This was a mistake. Now I had accountability. My buddy Mike asked how the standing was going and I said "incredible, game changer" while actively sitting down. I have become a standing desk influencer who does not stand.
Stage 5: Acceptance (the real kind)
Here's what nobody tells you: the desk doesn't fix you. You have to fix you, and the desk is just the thing that holds your coffee while you do it.
I stopped trying to be a standing hero and just added 20 minutes in the morning. Then 30. Then one day I looked up and I'd been standing for two hours and hadn't noticed. My wife walked by, did a double take, and said "bout time!"
I'm not saying it happens fast. I'm not saying it's comfortable. I'm saying it's worth it, and the only way through is to stop being weird about it and just show up at the desk.
Even for 11 minutes.
Especially for 11 minutes.
— Freddie
Not a doctor. Not a physiotherapist. Just a guy who used to look like a question mark.
Have a Stage 1–5 story of your own? Drop it in the comments. We are all in this together.