Spot on. I wish we as a society would just stop measuring everything--productivity, service, quality of service, personal experience after ordering on a website, and personal experience after using a commercial website of any kind. It's gotten to the point that one minute after I've purchased something, be it clothing, coffee or something else I needed, I get an email or a text message asking me to evaluate my experience. I don't want to. I hereby state that I no longer wish to fill out any company survey asking me to rate my experience and to give reasons for my rating. I'll get in touch with you if I am super happy or super unhappy with the service I received. Super happy or super unhappy are rare experiences, as well they should be. Measuring productivity has the same effect on me. There are so few times that I myself haven't lived up to my own standards for productivity that I can count them on one hand in the space of a forty-year career. So I don't need to constantly evaluate how I could have been more productive. I wasn't as productive as I could have been, those few times. So what? Life went on. There were no catastrophes because I didn't measure up on those particular days. No one was hurt by the fact that my research was less than optimal those few days. I am fairly certain that many others feel the same way. We are not perfect human beings. We need to give ourselves a break; there are already too many 'measurers' out there, just waiting for the chance to nail us. I won't give them the pleasure. Such constant measuring distracts us from what Watts calls 'degree of presence'. Are we present in our own lives? Are we present when we experience something beautiful in nature? Are we aware of what is happening around us in the moment? Or do we gloss over that one moment in the hunt for as many moments as possible--so that we can tally them up and tell others that we have done this or that many times. Life is not a competition with others about who is most productive or who has amassed the most 'moments', nor is it a race to the finish line. Nobody is going to hand you a medal at the end of your life telling you that you that you were best, that you were most productive, that you 'won'.
