“The human body is a steed that goes freest and longest under a light rider, and the lightest of all riders is a cheerful heart,” wrote John Burroughs. On the other hand, the American naturalist said “the heaviest thing in the world is a heavy heart.”

So how do we bring cheerfulness into our walks? Burroughs (whose friends included Walt Whitman, Thomas Edison, John Muir and the like) thought it a matter of attitude. He argued that too many of us treat walking as we do bad tasting medicine. We endure it, but don’t enjoy it. And the more we dislike it “the greater our faith in the virtue of the medicine.”

What is the alternative? Burroughs said “a man must invest himself in common things (he meant the ordinary things found in nature).

Writing in the early 1900s, he made fun of wealthy Americans who (for their health) visited scenic outdoor (and expensive) places but never left the comfort and safety of the lodge or automobile. “You can never catch one in the fields or woods, or guilty of trudging along the country road with dust on his shoes and sun-tan on his hands and face. The sole amusement seems to be to eat and dress and sit about the hotels and glare at each other.”

Translation: Don’t just look at nature as you would a pretty picture on the wall. Enter it. Let your body feel cold or hot or dirty or tired or—cheerful!