The Problem We Address
🔥 Burnout Culture & Personal Planetary Boundaries
We live in a culture that glorifies hustle and endless optimization. But just like our planet has boundaries that shouldn't be crossed, so do you. The concept of Planetary Boundaries — ecological limits we must respect for Earth's survival — applies to personal wellbeing too.
You can't optimize your way to happiness. Pushing every metric higher leads to burnout, not balance. Meeka recognizes that sustainable growth respects limits.
📊 The Quantified Self Paradox
Tracking steps, calories, screen time — quantified self apps promise control. But there's a paradox: measuring everything often changes nothing.
Why? Because data without meaning becomes noise. 10,000 steps means nothing if you hate walking. Meeka doesn't just track numbers — it helps you understand the why behind your actions and celebrates progress in all its forms.
🧩 Fragmented Wellness Apps
The app market is full of single-dimension solutions: fitness apps ignore mental health, meditation apps ignore relationships, budgeting apps ignore environmental impact.
But you're not a collection of isolated metrics — you're a holistic human. Meeka addresses all six dimensions of wellbeing because real growth happens when everything works together.
Our Approach: Persuasive Affordance Design
🌱 Gentle Nudges, Not Guilt Trips
Most apps use shame, streaks, and social pressure to drive engagement. Meeka uses playful encouragement. Your inner meerkat grows stronger as you progress, but never punishes you for rest days.
We believe in intrinsic motivation — finding joy in the journey, not chasing external rewards.
🌈 The Prism of Happiness: Holistic Attributes
Meeka tracks six interconnected dimensions of your life:
Body
Physical health, fitness, nutrition, and energy
Mind
Cognitive skills, learning, focus, and mastery
Soul
Emotions, self-love, spirituality, and reflection
Community
Relationships, communication, and connection
Thriftiness
Resource management and mindful consumption
Pawprint
Environmental impact and planetary wellbeing
This isn't just wellness — it's holistic flourishing. And it's grounded in research showing that these dimensions interact and reinforce each other.
🎮 Playful Engagement: Homo Ludens
Johan Huizinga's concept of Homo Ludens — "the playful human" — reminds us that play isn't frivolous. It's fundamental to how we learn, grow, and find meaning.
Meeka gamifies growth without turning it into a grind. Your avatar, daily quests, and visual progress create a sense of joyful agency, not obligation.
Worldview Compass
The IPCC’s classic scenario framework (A1, A2, B1, B2) maps four ways people imagine the future: global vs. local focus on one axis, and growth-first vs. life-first priorities on the other. We use that lens as a worldview compass so you can notice where your instincts sit today—and where you might want to experiment.
🌐 A1 — Tech Optimists
Confident that innovation and collaboration will solve big problems. Love rapid progress, global exchange, and bold experiments.
🏡 A2 — Local Guardians
Prefer resilient, close-knit communities. Value tradition, self-reliance, and protecting local resources over global integration.
🌿 B1 — Global Stewards
Seek a globally coordinated, sustainability-first transition. Believe policy, cooperation, and shared learning can transform systems.
🤝 B2 — Community Caretakers
Champion grassroots change and social justice. Focus on equity, wellbeing, and living lightly within planetary boundaries.
Source inspiration: IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES), plus follow-up worldview work by Klaas van Egmond, Walter Vermeulen & Bert de Vries.
Integrated Worldviews
Building on that compass, we draw from integral worldview research led by Klaas van Egmond, Walter Vermeulen, Bert de Vries, and Annick de Witt. Their studies show that lasting change happens when inner meaning-making and outer structures evolve together.
🌱 Inner & Outer Alignment
Egmond, Vermeulen & De Vries (2006) show that sustainability efforts falter when they address systems but ignore the personal beliefs behind daily choices. Meeka pairs measurable quests with reflective prompts so values and actions stay in sync.
🧭 Meaning-Making Matters
Hedlund-de Witt (2012) mapped how worldviews influence our willingness to act on ecological and social issues. By cultivating curiosity, compassion, and playful experimentation, Meeka helps you adopt a worldview that supports compassionate growth.
🔁 Systems Thinking, Human Scale
The integrated worldview lens blends systems theory with lived experience. Each quest invites you to notice relationships—between body and mind, between self-care and community, between thriftiness and planetary care—so routines reinforce collective wellbeing.
References: Klaas van Egmond, Walter Vermeulen & Bert de Vries (2006) Sustainable development & worldviews; Annick de Witt (2012) Worldviews and the transformation to sustainable societies.
Research Foundation
🔀 Complexity Theory: Behavior as Emergence
Traditional behavior change apps treat habits like linear inputs: do X, get Y. But humans are complex adaptive systems.
In complexity theory, meaningful change emerges from simple interactions over time. Meeka doesn't force rigid routines — it creates conditions for growth to naturally unfold.
🦎 Behavioral Biomimicry
Nature has solved behavior challenges for millions of years. Biomimicry applies nature's strategies to human systems.
Meerkats, for example, thrive through balance — they're vigilant but playful, independent but communal. Your "inner meerkat" embodies this wisdom, reminding you to balance work and rest, solitude and connection.
🌾 Sufficiency Over Surplus
Consumer culture pushes endless accumulation — more money, more productivity, more optimization. But research on sufficiency shows that enough is actually better than more.
Meeka celebrates reaching "enough": enough sleep, enough movement, enough connection. You don't need to maximize every metric to live well.