Over the past several years, I’ve noticed a trend of people tracking more and more metrics—even about things that they do for pleasure.
I’m open to the idea that some people derive pleasure from the measuring of things. But it seems like there is more going on.
It feels like many of us feel the pressure to be efficient and keep stats about our hobbies and pleasure time to justify it.
I have two basic rules. I never keep track of how many chocolate chip cookies I eat in a year and I don’t track how many books I read. To me the numbers are irrelevant. A fresh, hot chocolate chip cookie is one of life’s greatest pleasures. Knowing how many I ate in a month or year would ruin some of that pleasure.
The act of escaping into a good book is another one of my favorite parts of life. I never feel pressured to read. I take a book with me everywhere I go, and often I don’t read it. Trying to chase some pleasure reading goal seems beside the point to me.
There’s enough data collection in life, let’s not ruin our perfectly good pleasures by tracking them too.
Be the weird you want to see in the world!
Cheers,
Jason