Have you noticed that life quickly becomes a series of numbers: how many steps you have done, how many likes your picture got, how many calories you’ve burned, how many words you have written, what score did you get in your last exam, what was the weight of your baby, and so it goes on. Everything has become countable. Until you are forced to stop.

Even before I broke my hip nearly two years ago, I had noticed that the one thousand steps I aimed for every day had dropped to one hundred. Now the counter stays firmly at zero. Most days I try to make a joke out of it but it is actually depressing when I stop to think about it. But then, yesterday, I started to think about how marking success in numbers can be soul-destroying. You can’t reduce an experience in the fresh air to a number of steps, or an enjoyable meal out to how many calories you consumed. Or a well-written paragraph to how many words are in it.

So as I fly down the hill later on my trike I will leave countable achievements behind and just enjoy the immeasurable pleasure of the wind hitting my face and blowing my hair back.

Have a think about the small pleasures you enjoy and dwell in the unique experience of delighting in them. Sometimes, most of the time, you can’t put a number on the things you do. When was the last time you left your pedometer at home or skipped the scales? When was the last time you truly lived? I’ll be thinking about you as I enjoy the park, no steps to count!