My brand-new Fitbit’s battery gave out the first day, just as I was finishing a spurt of exercising at the community center. There I was, finishing a twenty-minute walk on the treadmill, having done two miles on the recumbent bicycle, when it started flashing to reveal the battery was drained.

Low on Approval and Encouragement?

I thought it had a long charge!

It does – if you don’t keep checking it to see the progress you are making.

But, its tracking fascinated me. So, I kept checking to see the record I was logging. I kept looking at electronic records of all my steps; even the ones that registered when I forget why I went into a room! It made it look like they are all intentional. The little device now assigns a value to what previously was just frustration. Now it’s exercise.

Not, really.

My spiffy red tracker also keeps a log of my heart rate, which judges the result of all those steps – and declares whether or not I was in the proper zone, fat-burning, aerobic or resting. So, not all “exercise” is equal, even though any movement is better than none.

Working for Some Approval

What’s great is I set the expectation level down for my steps. No way was I going to take 10,000 steps! But I like the reward. With a lower number set for my step goal, I get a little buzzing alarm when I exceed my step limit for the day. I think the walking dead could exceed the goal I picked, but it makes me happy . . . to be reward by an electronic monitor.

Approval and encouragement do a body good! Even to an old and outta shape one! So, no; I am not upping the step goal. I look forward to that little jolt on wrist! (But I am going to keep moving after the jolt!)

I wonder: How hard could it be, to be, today, an encouraging little buzz in someone else’s life? Let me check my attitude as frequently as I do my do my Fitbit!

Be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud. ~Maya Angelou

Silent gratitude isn’t much use to anyone. ~G.B. Stern

I am grateful for you, dear readers!