stop keeping score

Judge Smails: Ty, what did you shoot today?

Ty Webb: Oh, Judge, I don’t keep score.

Judge Smails: Then how do you measure yourself with other golfers?

Ty Webb: By height.
Caddyshack

The floors creak and crack around this house. It’s not that old but they crack all the same. Especially in the winter. I’ve got the game on but it’s just a cover. I’m walking laps. Family room, living room, dining room, past the bar, the kitchen, and back again. That’s about ninety-six steps and it is a mind-numbing activity. But I can’t stop.

10,000 steps. I set the goal, I’ll hit the goal. I have a few nights like this a week. A little short on my steps. The day got busy, so I walk around the house until I hit my number before finally heading upstairs to bed.

Step counter, for those that can't stop keeping score

My wife will ask about it.

“Were you walking around down there all night?”

I’ll make something up.

“Yeah, just keeping my legs moving, can’t sit during the game.”

“Getting your steps?” She is half joking but right on target.

It’s a thing. Getting those steps. People do it. But I’m mostly normal, so why am I doing it?

I don’t watch the scale or the screen time, but I count these steps.

“My rule is to break one sweat a day”
Matthew McConaughey

When I was younger, I had a bit of an OCD thing. I counted everything. Had to end with an even number.

Not normal.

It was driving me crazy. I had to break the habit, so I’d say random numbers in my head.

10, 17, 56, 72, 101, 2, 67.

I’d say numbers in my head so I couldn’t count my steps. Sometimes that wasn’t enough, so I had to say them aloud. Really loud. I had to drown out that inner voice that was counting.

42, 8, 173, 67, 25, 83.

I’d hum and say numbers and put my hands over my ears and rub in this circular motion to make white noise and throw off the count. Worked well. I broke that compulsion. Looked crazy but kept me from going crazy.

It came back in later years. I was getting in shape, training for a marathon, and Strava was messing with me. Had to hit my pace, had to hit my miles. I injured my calf during training but didn’t have my miles yet, so I kept going. Twisted my ankle another time and kept going. Grinding out that number.

Eventually, I switched over to kilometers to get past that. To throw off the count. I’m so American I can’t really do the miles-to-kilometers conversion and now I don’t want to. But it is still tracking and measuring. I still feel compelled to score the run.

I’ve done it for reading and squats and stretching and journaling.

Can’t break the streak.

I set some resolutions for the new year. Put those in my habit tracking app, compulsive tracking of everything good and evil starts in 10, 9, 8, 7…

Happy New Year!

Let the tracking begin. Scoring your life.

It ruled my day and ruined more than a few. If I didn’t see those green checks, it was over. It didn’t matter what other good things happened, I missed my mobility WOD, or my protein target. Day ruined.

And this is how we treat ourselves. How I treated myself.

We love keeping score. We’ve been doing it for a long time.

Ancient people tracked the stars and the sun and the seasons. 5,000 years ago, we were tracking, and we keep it going today.

[Tracking like Indiana Jones with the Staff of Ra. Not real, but you get the idea]

Maybe you’ve done it too. Count the steps or track the reading.

How many carbs, coffees, or glasses of wine?

The deadlift, or miles, or meditation?

Now we can’t even be bothered to write this stuff down. It’s tracked for us. Our watch and our phone and our apps. Heaven forbid you go on a walk without them, you won’t get credit, it never really happened.

How was my work out? Check the watch.

Did I get enough sleep? Check the phone.

Can I run today, can I eat sweet potatoes, can I have a night out?

At work, we track our calls, our meetings, and our productivity.

Algorithms read our writing, listen to our speech, and use Artificial Intelligence to see if we are using the proper ‘tone’, and if we are being ‘received’ well. Dashboards and notifications tell us if we are falling behind.

And we are always falling behind.

We are keeping score, and we like it. Or we don’t know any better. After all, we were brought up in a world of keeping score. Even in the arts, it’s less about music and more about getting that first chair. Less about the photo and more about the photo contest.

Are we happy? Always knowing the score? I’m trying to find the winners to see how they feel.

You hit those numbers, guess what, you get a new one. That’s the prize. Enjoy.

The truth is that scoring is easy. Easier to score and track than it is to think and connect. What Seth Godin would call ‘real skills’ are the ones that can’t simply be measured and can’t easily be replaced.

Let’s focus on those.