I Used To Just Go For A Walk, Now I Get Worried If I Don't Hit My 10K Steps A Day

Introduction

The quote:

"I used to just go for a walk, now I get worried if I don't hit my 10K steps a day"

is from Matt Haig, I don't know if it was a one off or from one of his books but I was reminded of it in the Seven Days In post from 2019:

and it got me thinking about how things that were what they were were now things that we can record, track and analyse, and whether that is a good or a bad thing.

The music is "Good Technology" by Red Guitars.

I Used To Just Go For A Walk, Now I Get Worried If I Don't Hit My 10K Steps A Day

I don't let things like this worry me, but I definitely used to just walk without really recording anything. I think at some point I got a pedometer, but it didn't tell me much more than I already knew. The first time I started trying to record my steps was on one of my early mobile phones, but once more, it was not reliable.

Then it became more reliable, and nine years ago, I started doing a million steps every three months, and with my new step counter (Google Fit on my Google Pixel):

That required 11,000 steps a month, but I didn't keep it up and reduced my target steps down to 7,000 a day so that I could easily do them in one walk. I still often hit 14,000 steps a day and the million steps in three months, but my target puts me under less pressure.

I do believe that the technology made it easier for me to know that I was hitting my walking targets, and that in turn has helped me survive cirrhosis and liver cancer, with the aid of our NHS.

Think about what we are doing on Vocal, we write our stories and poetry, and then share it with our friends and the world, instantly. This option was certainly not available fifteen years ago, even though I have been blogging for twenty years now. My blog has been visited by one and a half million robots and a few people and friends:

It used to be that if you wanted to write a book or put a record out, you had to find the money to issue and initial run and hope that it sold, and maybe get you noticed by a record company or a book company.

Now, thanks to Amazon's print-on-demand and e-books, anyone, even me, can publish a book. You can do the same with music, and although I have not yet published anything for sale yet, I have a few pieces on Soundcloud:

And I often try things on my YouTube channel which you can explore here

Conclusion

Today, we carry computers in our hands. The only things they don't do are teleport and shoot death rays, but they are fairly close to the Star Trek handheld devices from the sixties.

My "phone" lets me watch TV, talk to people on video, message, use it as a phone, search the internet, write articles by talking to it, and lots more.

Despite the horrors in this world, we are still able to do things that we never dreamed possible. Luckily, we have so many beneficial geniuses who have brought these incredible devices into being.

So, walking 10K does not worry me, I see some people and am grateful that I can walk 10K if I so desire. I think because I keep walking, that keeps me able to walk.

Thank you so much for reading, and I hope that this has given you a little food for thought.