Watch Goals

 

"What goal does your watch have for you this month?"  My wife, Elaine, asked me.

I made a disgusted noise.  "It's crazy," I said.  "It set me a goal of burning 37,600 calories this month!"

I'm not certain why I care about what exercise goals my Apple Watch decides to place in my path.  Maybe this is the first step to artificial intelligence taking over and ruling the world.

(I'll tell my grandkids, "It all started in the 2020s with watches telling us to exercise...")

"That sounds like a lot," Elaine commented.

"Just a little!"  I snorted.  "I calculated and that's an average of 1,213 calories a day.  There are some days that I hit that mark, but most days I'm below it.  I think my watch wants to kill me!"

"It's not that bad," my wife said.  "Just don't do it..."

"Back in June my watch wanted me to walk 273 miles in the month -- it was over 9 miles a day!"  I'm afraid my aggravation level was at a pretty high level.

It is wise to set goals.  People who don't have intentionality to their actions end up floating along aimlessly.

It is just important that our goals are realistic.  Some silly person (Google says it was Norman Vincent Peale) said to "Shoot for the moon.  Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars."

This sort of quote makes it clear that Mr. Peale had no concept of the distance between the moon and the nearest star.  From an astronomical sense, the quote should be "Shoot for the moon.  If you miss, you'll end up floating without air in the vacuum of space somewhere between here and Mars."  

More than that, the quote would make more sense if it indicated that you shot for the stars and ended up on the moon.  Most of us struggle with coming up short of our goals -- not overshooting them by a factor of several million.

There are two issues I see with goals.  First, people make their goals relatively unimportant things.  Things like accumulating money or getting promotions within a company, while capable of burning a lot of time and energy, do not bring satisfaction, nor do they have lasting value.

The Apostle Paul said, "I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." (Phil 3:14).  His goal had greater worth and as such, the things he did endured long after others of his day's wealth had vanished away.

The second danger is that we set unrealistic goals.  Aiming for things that aren't achievable leads to frustration and can cause us to give up.  It is better to set ourselves a goal that we need to work for but is attainable.

There is little in this world so frustrating as a digital watch ordering you to exercise more than you are able.