14, 13, 7, 4, 2. 2, 4, 7, 13, 14. Again and again and again. It’s not so bad except for 13 to 7. Mastering that jump cost me a few broken bones and pints of blood. The key, I now know, is to push off the black rock next the stairs with your toes instead of your heels, as is natural for novices. Once I got that down, I was able to put in a minimum of four hours per day.

The dividends have been life-changing. I chose the programming skill reward, which seemed obvious given economic trends, but apparently most people choose vanity skill rewards like charisma or sexual endurance. I now have a job at Google, a corporation that offers maximum schedule flexibility for Stepping, and money with lots of trailing zeros in my bank account.

It all makes me laugh that my mom had to essentially force me to start Stepping. All my life I’d tried to get better at things with practice, and all my life I’d failed to acquire any useful skills. Yet, the thought of moving up and down stairs so the NXQ3000 could alter my brain struck me as both stupid and dangerous. Now I get that my aversion was another personification of my “fear of success.” So glad that’s no longer a part of me.