> Then after 200 days, I lost my streak and... breathed a sigh of relief.
I have a 297 day streak right now and I just feel like slave to the owl. I’m going to get to 365 and then purposely break the streak to free myself.
I have a 297 day streak right now and I just feel like slave to the owl. I’m going to get to 365 and then purposely break the streak to free myself.
Why do you even care? It's an artificial count by a for-profit company with an Owl logo that doesn't even know you exist outside of a few database rows.
You've just self-described it as slavery, why would you keep doing this to yourself?
I don't like being nitpicky, but if we're going to argue about the "correct usage" and not accept colloquial usage has perverted the term, I may as well set the record straight:
>a person who is forced to work for and obey another and is considered to be their property; an enslaved person.
No, it is actually completely correct. But for the sake of playing this fun game of being "Technically right" here's also a dictionary definition:
Slave noun:
"a person entirely under the domination of some influence or person:"
She was a slave to her own ambition.
>>and not accept colloquial usage has perverted the term
No such thing has happened, words can have both literal and figurative meaning.
fair enough, I thought that definition was unofficial or marked as slang.
>No such thing has happened, words can have both literal and figurative meaning.
yes, like "literally" having the definition of "figuratively". I would indeed call that a perversion:
>to divert to a wrong end or purpose
most of the time that is at best marked as slang (such as use of a double negative to mean a negative, and not a soft positive), but I guess that's not my call to make.
The GP's comment was that they were effectively 'slave' to a skinner box, and even recognized it. And yet, refusal to do anything about it.
I see it again and again. The answers are there, and a bit harder, but yeah.
I mean, I literally said in the same post what I was going to do about it. I'm ending it on my own terms when I'm satisfied with my own progress.
Lots of people harness this for their own good with streaks for things that are really actually valuable for them.
It's kind of like telling a smoker to just quit because it's the smoking company who benefits. Yeah, sure, but the addiction is internal. They're not just selflessly smoking to help Philip Morris.
#downvoteInApproach :)
Nobody has yet shown me a flawless proof that they themselves exist, or anything else, and yet somehow, I manage to get through my days just fine based on the versions of things in my mind that correspond to the empirical phenomena that I experience. And occasionally those mental constructs change with new empirical data even.
After a year the milestones become less meaningful (400 days? 500? 700? meh) yet harder and harder to break the longer you go. A friend recently hit 1000 days in Duolingo--really hard to give up once you've gone that far.
Thankfully I got out of it and am much more consciously breaking streaks.
The downside is that I've clearly been exercising a lot less since I stopped focusing on the streak, so it works in some ways…
We should have a way to adjust what we consider a streak: maybe a daily streak is important to you, but maybe 3 times a week is what matters to you. Having the option for each app would be great.