On January 15 this year I posted about a new habit I had committed to establishing:

1. Upon waking, get sunlight for at least several minutes before getting on any screen
2. Delay caffeine intake for at least 45 minutes after waking

I also committed to writing Morning Pages (3 pages, long hand, stream of consciousness journaling) in those first 15-30 minutes, which was actually the primary goal. The point of the practice is to unlock clarity and creativity in those first minutes of waking, when the door between conscious and subconscious awareness and insight is more open than at other times of day. Today was Day 310 total (I miss a few days a month, on average). But it was delayed, so did it count?

I do three high intensity workouts at Ethos every week. It gets harder to motivate to do things at home anymore, and yesterday I felt sheepishly happy to Iog 20 minutes of moderate effort on the elliptical. That counts as exercise, in my opinion. But what if I had only walked to the grocery store and back (which I also did)? What intensity and duration justifies that green dot on my habit tracker?

What counts as meditation, prayer, or ‘low carb’?

Why does it matter?

How many times a day do we encounter one recommendation or another for how many steps we should take, how much protein to eat, what school of meditation is best, what sleep routines to adopt, and how many people we need in our inner circle? If we wanted to follow all of the ‘experts” advice for health, just reading the recommendations and attempting to execute would be a full time job.

Of course I get to decide what counts as Morning Pages or exercise or not, because I am only accountable to myself for the habits and behaviors that uphold my own health. In the end it’s about goals, trade-offs, and results. Why do I do these things? What am I trying to accomplish? What am I willing and not willing to do for the desired outcomes?

What works for me, regardless of what ‘experts’ say and ‘studies show’?

Morning pages make my day better whether I have looked out the window or at my phone beforehand, though the insights may come a bit easier with the former, because I always spend more time on the phone than I intend. But it still usually takes at least a page and a half before novel ideas and epiphanies emerge. Regardless, I feel calmer and centered having journaled at all before the day starts in earnest.

Moving in any way for any amount of time benefits both mind and body, and I can both feel and see consequences of variations in frequency, duration, and intensity over days, weeks, and months. If I move above and beyond activities of daily living and work, then I count it, track it, and review over time to correlate with how I feel.

I see people getting fixated on ‘what counts’. Our culture of metrics, trackers, comparison, and competition foster this tendency toward obsessiveness. It’s too easy today to lose the forest for the trees, and much too easy to forget that the complex global ecosystem of a whole person’s health is synergistic in multiple simultaneous dimensions rather than simple or linear in any way. Whenever we hear anyone say, ‘just do (xxx), and it will fix (some global problem that nobody has yet to solve because there is simply no one right solution),’ we should approach with high skepticism and alert critical thinking.

If it aligns with my commitments and gives me a sense of progress toward my goals, then I say it counts. Tracking helps me see patterns, intersections, and correlates. It makes me more self-aware in real time, holds me accountable, and gives me a little dopamine hit with each green dot logged. Counting can be its own reward.

In the end, however, it’s the being and the doing that matter. So count it or not, I get to choose. The rewards of action and results outweigh those of counting. I think it’s good once in a while to consider more deeply the basic questions like, “What counts?” It keeps me honest.