For generations, people accepted that sore, tired feet were just a result of a hard day’s work, and tugging at the unforgiving leather boots to take them off at the end of the day became a symbolic end-of-work ritual that allowed the exhausted worker to finally put their work-weary feet up, before they try and recover until starting the cycle all over again the next morning.
In the meantime, far from the factory floor and the building site, the sports shoe had sprinted ahead.