Why I Dumped My Meditation Timer
I’m sorry, Insight Timer, but it’s over.
It’s not you, it’s me. Well, it’s a little bit you.
When we first got together, I really loved your streak tracker. Watching the number of days tick up by one really gave me this…rush.
It made me happy. You made me happy.
But then I grew to need it.
I didn’t really want to meditate, I just wanted to see that number change. It did help me stay on track and build my practice…but this isn’t working for me anymore. I think it’s time for me to move on.
Okay, I’m not going to belabor the breakup metaphor any further.
I think you get the point. I was very attached to my meditation timer. And that’s contrary to the point of meditation practice. So, I decided to dump it.
Here’s how I arrived at that difficult decision.
A little over a year ago, this thing happened. Not sure if you’ve heard of it…uh, Coronavirus? Anyway, I was stressed out. I thought it would be a great time to commit to meditating every day.
I set a goal. I would meditate every day for a year. 365 days. I would sit down first thing every morning and do 20 minutes. I would track all of my sessions on Insight Timer.
I was really dedicated. Maybe too dedicated.
For instance, if I was in an online meditation class or out of service or my phone was dead, I would always go back later and manually log a session in the app. That way, the numbers would continue to accumulate (and I’d earn my stars).
If I didn’t do that, I’d get a big fat zero at the end of my next session. It felt like a punch to the gut. I can’t remember missing a day. But I’m certain that if I did, I would have faked it.
So, there was probably a little deception in this relationship too.
The big shift came a couple of months ago. A friend turned me on to Sam Harris’ meditation app, Waking Up. I got a free 30-day trial and I did the introductory course. I’m going to write an entire piece about this specifically so I won’t go into detail here. But suffice it to say, it was eye-opening.
Most notably, it brought into focus the unhealthy relationship I was in with my current meditation app.
At this point, I now have two meditation apps on my phone. And I’m still relying on Insight Timer to keep track of my days in a row. So, each morning, I’m logging into Insight Timer, starting the clock, opening Waking Up, doing the meditation, re-opening Insight Timer, hitting the ‘done’ button.
All of this to just get that dopamine hit when day 231 turns to day 232.
Why not just track my streak in Waking Up, you ask?
Well, that’s because Waking Up doesn’t have a day tracker. It used to. It doesn’t anymore. A fact Sam (rather unceremoniously) announced one day.
He outlined how streak tracking was not necessary for a healthy practice and how they made the mistake of just copying what the competition was doing without really thinking about it.
And, poof, everybody’s streaks were just…gone.
He closed with “You’re Welcome.”
Was this directed at me personally?
My stomach literally sank and I logged into Insight Timer to make sure my numbers were still safe. Then it finally hit me: this is stupid. Why am I obsessing over this? When that day counter hits 365, then what? What do I get out of this?
The best I could come up with was that I could write a blog post or show a friend screenshots of my streak and all my stats. For clout.
What would that get me? What kind of lunatic am I, exactly? Who the hell would care? What kind of person flexes their meditation app profile?
But, I’m ashamed to admit, I went another two weeks logging in, starting my timer, switching apps, and going back to watch the days accumulate.
When the day finally came and I hit my goal, I poured over the stats. I read through all the charts. I meticulously counted my stars (47 of them). And I’m really ashamed to admit that I almost chickened out completely.
See, I hit 365 early in March and so the bar graph that showed my total minutes of meditation had 11 full months and one puny, little bar for March. I seriously considered keeping the charade going just through the end of the month so that the bar graph would look more impressive. So it would be complete.
And I even took the screenshots.
Today, I logged into Insight Timer again. Not to meditate, but to look at my profile one last time. Where the number 365 used to be there is a dash, signifying zero days in a row.
I’m still meditating every day. But I’m also grieving the breakup.
Originally published at https://www.mattgangloff.com on March 8, 2021.
