During a walk in the park a few days ago, a woman in a floral dress came bounding my way, arms swinging. Her cheery demeanor soured as she stopped in front of me on the path.

"You're not skipping," she said.

"Should I be?"

Her jaw dropped so quickly I thought it was made of tungsten.

"Do you seriously not care about your mental health?"

The question felt so nonsensical that I could only give a perplexed look in response. With a sharp exhale she continued. "In case you haven't noticed, we're in a global mental health crisis."

"And how does me skipping fix that?"

She rolled her eyes. "Skipping increases serotonin production in the body relative to walking. So does being around skippers. It makes people happy to see other people happy. So if you're not skipping, you're not protecting the people around you from unhappiness."

"Well, I am happy, even if I'm not skipping. And I don't think it's my responsibility to protect everyone around me from unhappiness. Everyone should do what they decide is best for their own mental health."

"Oh my god," she said. "You're an anti-skipper."

"That's not true. I skip regularly."

"How often?"

"A few times a week, when an especially upbeat song comes on when I'm working out." It's more like a bouncing jig, but I feared this clarification would only ignite her.

"You really should be skipping anytime you're around others."

My curiosity overtook me. "Can I ask you, why is there such a focus on this one aspect of mental health? Why does society pay so much more attention to skipping than other mental health factors like diet and exercise and sleep? Why all of this focus on skipping, specifically?"

"Skipping is free. It's available to everyone. Anyone can skip at any time. Improving those other things are much more complex problems that are interwoven with the structure of society. Getting people to skip is a much simpler problem, and that's why it deserves all of the attention it gets."

"Hmmm," I said.

"I think skipping should be mandatory. That'd solve the problem."

"The problem of not everyone being skippers," I clarified. "Not the mental health crisis itself."

"Well, yeah," she admitted.

"Because even if everyone were forced to skip, some people would still suffer from mental health issues."

"I guess so."

"Then maybe the mental health crisis is just a part of life. Maybe, for now, it's endemic."

The woman crossed her arms. "But that's unacceptable to me."

"Look, I know our conversation has been an enormous simplification of the issue, and I know I'm guilty of some logical fallacies here. But I don't claim to know what's best for everyone. All I have is my perspective. I'm open to changing my mind on skipping as what's known changes. Are you?"

The woman didn't respond. I shrugged and continued on my way through the park.

But did I walk, or did I skip?