I have stupidly asked my phone to count my steps for me, and now I am keenly aware of things I wasn’t before:
- How many steps I take or don’t take; and
- Whether or not I have my phone on me.
I used to not care if I left my phone on my desk or in the kitchen. What was I going to miss? Calls from my children? Facebook updates? Eh, those things can wait— I’m no slave to technology.
But now! Now I am not getting credit for all my steps! It’s like I didn’t even take them, and so maybe no calories were burned. My cellphone could be misinformed about my fitness; and based on my photo gallery, text history, and the makeup of the filth on my screen protector, nothing knows me more intimately than my phone.
Which got me thinking, what if we logged other things?
What if we could count our luck? If every time a parking space in the shade was open, or I had the number of coins I needed, or the cop I zipped past did not pull me over, my phone made a plinky sound and an app logged it for me?
What would we notice if we accrued points for awareness? How would we move differently through the world if we got a little tune and an electronic “target achieved” notification if we acknowledged 10 times things broke our way every day.
What would we count if we could go back in time?