My Watch Just Congratulated Me For Not Sitting Down

And Now I Have Performance Anxiety

Right. So, my watch just congratulated me for standing up.

It buzzed, I looked, and there it was, glowing with all the earnest pride of a primary school teacher whose least promising student had finally managed to spell ‘apple’.

“Goal Achieved!” it chirped. “You stood for an hour!”

I stared at it, then at my own two legs, which, to be fair, had been doing the job without any fuss for several decades. I hadn’t thought to thank them.

Apparently, my watch felt they deserved some recognition.

Well… I guess this is where life has got to.

In my time (admittedly not recently), I’ve put together a flat-pack wardrobe without panicking or resorting to wood glue.

I even successfully parallel parked a medium sized truck on a hill. And something I’m extra proud of was standing through an entire wedding ceremony without fainting or making a scene.

The universe met these triumphs with just…..silence.

But today, I moved from a seated to a non-seated position, and a tiny electronic cheerleader on my wrist threw a party.

You have to wonder what’s going on at management level, don’t you?

Somewhere in a gigantic beige office block, one that’s roughly a dimension and a half in size, there must be a Department for Ludicrously Small Victories.

I have this picture in my mind of a stressed out celestial clerk called Kevin, swamped in paperwork.

“Right,” says his supervisor, clicking through a PowerPoint with seventeen identical slides. “How’s Earth doing on the Big Stuff? Climate? Peace?

Generally not being terrible?”

Kevin nervously shuffles a pile of printouts. “Not... not great on those, boss. But! We’ve had a huge uptick in people... well... not sitting down.”

“Brilliant! What a win! Roll out the congratulatory notifications!

Let them know we’re seeing their efforts!”

And so I find myself in a world where the simple act of straightening my knees has been re-categorised from ‘bodily function’ to ‘laudable achievement’.

I’m genuinely worried about what happens if I sit down again. Will my watch buzz with a disappointed sigh?

“We had such high hopes for you,” it might murmur. “Back to horizontal, are we? Typical.”

I’m starting to develop a complex. I’m standing up to get a cup of coffee and find myself thinking, “Yes! Look at me go! Another 10 points for Team Vertical!”

Where does all this end?.

Are we all going to start getting notifications for successfully breathing?

Awards for remembering our own names?

It’s all a bit much.

Still, maybe I shouldn’t complain.

It’s the most encouragement I’ve had all week.

Tomorrow I’m going to try sitting AND standing three times in the same hour.