I like to keep fit, and when not gardening or singing solo or in a choir, I cycle, play tennis, swim, dance, a... — Jane Hawking

I like to keep fit, and when not gardening or singing solo or in a choir, I cycle, play tennis, swim, dance, and practise yoga.

Author: Jane Hawking

Insight: Most of us think we need to pick one thing and stick with it—the one sport, the one hobby, the identity we're building toward. But there's something quietly radical about Jane Hawking's approach: the refusal to choose. She doesn't cycle because she's a cyclist or garden because she's a gardener. She does all of it because moving, creating, and engaging with the world in different ways isn't about optimization or status. It's about staying alive in multiple dimensions. What's interesting is how this actually protects you. When you depend on one activity for fitness, for joy, for identity, you're fragile. An injury, aging, boredom, or circumstance can collapse everything. But when you're comfortable moving between gardening and dancing, cycling and yoga, you're not just fit—you're adaptable. You've built yourself to handle change. You have multiple ways to feel good, to challenge yourself, to be social or solitary. There's also something honest here about how varied humans are. We're not designed for one thing. We need rhythm and exertion, creativity and community, the outdoor world and the meditative ones. The people who seem most genuinely content aren't usually obsessive about a single passion. They're the ones comfortable exploring, trying, mixing it up. That kind of movement through life—literal and otherwise—might be what keeping fit really means.