If our foot is perpetually on the gas, it’s hard to take stock of where we are in this process — how we feel, how it’s going, what comes next.

My GPS watch insists on tracking my running streak, my hitting-my-step-count streak, my drinking-enough-water streak. A friend mentions their Duolingo streak. An app offers to track my meditation streak, which seems to fly in the face of mindfulness. As I type this, I’m shown an ad for something called “Streaks,” billed as “the to-do list that... See more