I may be the only one in the
world who calls my Apple Watch my wristy overlord. It reminds me to stand up every hour. It lets me know if my activity level is lower
than usual for a particular time of day.
It counts my exercise minutes for me, based on my actual heart rate
rather than my perceived exertion. A
couple of times a day, it even tells me to breathe mindfully.
It is not that I don’t appreciate
its benign despotism. Most of the time,
I find the reminders useful (and slightly less passive aggressive than the ones
I used to get from my Fitbit).
However, last week I was
sick for much of the week. I finally had
to put the watch in timeout because it was not helping me to have it remind me
that I wasn’t really doing much of anything in terms of activity or exercise or
even standing up. It is not useful to
feel guilty as well as sick. We both
spent the rest of the week recharging our batteries.
I am probably not the
only one in the world who needs to be reminded that we are the boss of
ourselves. We have tools. When the tools start using us, we need to
take a step back (whether it counts or not) and evaluate.
I do not think there is
anyone who wants to be fit just to be praised by an inanimate device. We want fitness so we can stroll the beach at
sunset or chase the kids around the yard or have better sex or feel fabulous in
our clothes. Our wristy overlords don’t
measure that.
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