This is hardly a brilliant insight, but I’ve noticed that making small, “good” decisions early in the day makes the whole day work better. If I wake up and avoid screen time and loafing around, I get more and better work done, I make more sensible meal choices, I’m less needy and thought-addled, I don’t get as tired in the afternoon, and so on.
The exact causal paths here aren’t necessarily traceable. Maybe my procrastination neurons miss their usual early-morning workout, so I become less inclined to unlock my phone reflexively, which means I get more done and feel better about myself, so the future feels brighter and more within my control, so I don’t hit a wall of motivation loss at 2:30.
There countless variables involved, but the clear pattern is that good begets more good. This seems like a general principle that affects everyone.
It works the other way too, of course. Bad choices beget bad choices. In a moment of weakness you order cheesecake on DoorDash at 9:40 pm. You proceed to sleep poorly, and wake up distracted and screen-hungry. You start late, get annoyed at the first setback at work, compromise your afternoon plans, and feel bad about it, perhaps leading eventually to some evening ennui and more cake delivery.
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I never threw a party until I was in my late 30s. I was always afraid people wouldn’t show up, or, even worse, that they would show up and quickly want to leave.
It felt like this particular fate could not be risked, which meant party-throwing was off the table. Other people could throw parties I guess, but I could not.
“No parties may be held in this lifetime” is quite a high cost to pay, just to protect yourself from a very occasional sort of pain. Yes it feels bad to have a lame party, but does it make sense to station yourself forever outside of the party-having population, solely to avoid having to feel that bad feeling two or three times in your life?
When I did start hosting parties, the usual outcome was that they were tremendously fun. Only one was genuinely disappointing. I had unwittingly scheduled it on the same day as another, more elaborately planned party. Several loyal attendees also got called into work or got sick and/or injured. Still, five or six excellent people showed up, including some who had gone to both parties. We sat around the kitchen table eating snacks and collaborating hilariously on a crossword.
Of course, now that I’ve actually “suffered” this long-avoided type of pain, it barely registers as a meaningful risk anymore. Why did I give up so much to protect against it?
I think this situation is common – to be giving up way too much in an effort to protect against certain kinds of pain. When protecting yourself from a certain unpleasant possibility becomes non-negotiable, you’re liable to suffer in other ways, often to a much greater degree.
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I'm David, and Raptitude is a blog about getting better at being human -- things we can do to improve our lives today.
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