Chris Abraham

In the last ~50 years, midterms almost always go against the sitting president. Since 1974, there have been 12 midterms. The president’s party lost seats in 10 of them. The only modern exceptions were 1998 under Bill Clinton and 2002 under George W. Bush, both shaped by unusual national events. Losing seats in midterms is the rule, not the anomaly.

I’ve worn a Fitbit band on my right wrist every single day since 2013. That’s more than a decade of continuous tracking. Steps, heart rate, sleep, workouts. Long before Google.

Long before smartwatches ate the category. Back then, Fitbit was social. Competitive. A little game-ified. Friends compared steps, joined challenges, poked each other to move. I actually used the app. That era faded as people drifted to Apple Watch and other platforms, and it got harder to organically find friends still wearing Fitbit.

Then Google bought Fitbit, and for a while it felt like the whole thing wandered into the wilderness. Hardware kept improving, but the app lost momentum. I stayed loyal to the device, but mostly ignored the software. I wore it, glanced at my stats on the watch face, charged it constantly (because “Charge” really does mean charge), and let the data quietly accumulate.

That changed today.

The new Fitbit app is legitimately good. The AI coach, goal setting, and adaptive workout planning finally feel coherent. I told it what gear I own, what my goals are, and that my knees are temperamental. It took all of that into account and built a plan that actually makes sense.

For the first time in over ten years of wearing Fitbit hardware, the software, hardware, and AI coaching feel like one integrated system again. Good enough that I may stop treating Fitbit as a passive background tracker and start using it as the place where I actually plan my fitness going forward.

Caveat: this appears to be a Fitbit Premium feature.

I’m not arguing that my view is correct. I’m arguing that your certainty is unjustified. I’m not presenting a counter-theory, and I’m not asking anyone to accept my conclusions. I’m not claiming better access, hidden sources, or clearer vision.

What I’m pushing back on is confidence itself. How quickly it forms, how clean it feels, and how rarely it’s interrogated once it settles in. Most of what we experience now arrives filtered, edited, repeated, and emotionally framed. That doesn’t automatically make it false, but it does make certainty feel premature.

I’m not saying nothing is real or that everything is fake. I’m saying confidence often outruns understanding. Doubt isn’t a flaw here; it’s a reasonable response to how indirect and mediated everything has become. I’m not here to replace one belief with another. I’m just questioning why certainty feels so available, so comfortable, and so unquestioned.

If that irritates you, that reaction is part of what I’m pointing at.