You can do it
Keep moving, that’s the sentiment. We all know it. We’ve all read article after article about it. The longer we exist on this planet, the more we become aware of something I’ve taken for granted all these years. Stand. Walk. Run. Cycle. Swim. All of it. Lift. Stretch. Bend. Breathe. And most of all, keep moving.
I’ve recently put a watch on my wrist. This after more than ten years bare wrist. I love watches, have a dozen playful Swatches tucked away in a drawer somewhere, not sure why they are relegated to moth balls, except for one simple fact. Who needs a watch when the display of time surrounds us? In every room, vehicle, computer and electronic device. Constant reminder. No need to look at a watch because you can no longer escape the literal time of day. Still, I finally opted into the Apple Watch movement—joined the growing tribe dedicated to all the bells and whistles Apple dreams-up, primary one being an app to measure activity.
“How are your rings?” Mary asks, not talking of the one she slid on my finger on our wedding day, but the three featured on my new Dick Tracy radio watch. Mary a convert after I gave her one as a gift a year or so back. Not long after, you could catch her jumping out of bed to close one final ring on the day. Steps at midnight you might call it.
“I don’t seem to be able to close the calorie ring,” I say lamenting my inability to complete the trifecta of exercise, stand, and work
“What do you have it set at?” Mary asks.
“Whatever the preset… nine hundred,” I say.
“That’s crazy. Mine’s at six hundred,” she says. Nine hundred? Six hundred? All Greek to me. Message clear though. Keep moving. Over the next month I will measure my walk to the store, my bike commute to work, my quick sprints to the top of Summit Avenue, even my morning five minutes of yoga and deep breathing while working the pour-over coffee.
All of this well and good, but I don’t love the distraction this new device creates.
“Obsessed,” Mary says to Ben when we take his call by wrist. “Daddy’s obsessed with his new toy.”
We don’t need more dopamine hits, even if the result is fitness. Nonetheless, here’s to hoping I’ve boarded the train headed for a time when I just wear it and forget it. If you’ve got an Apple Watch, you know what I’m talking about. You yourself having likely passed the first month over indexing on the rings yourself. Maybe by now you’re just moving, not worrying as much about measuring every last workout. Maybe now you you’re moving, more interested in how the haptics keep you honest on a whole host of activities, ranging from exercise to when the kids need you to answer the damn phone and everything in between.
“You can do it,” the Apple message I wake up to this morning. My watch egging me on. Today the day, to keep moving, to climb that hill, to finally close that last red ring.
