I was sitting in my kitchen the other morning—the kind of morning where the sun hits the dust motes in the air just right—and I found myself staring at a pile of books I haven’t read. Next to them was a yoga mat I haven’t unrolled in three weeks, and next to that was a half-finished sourdough starter that had definitely seen better days. I felt this familiar, heavy tug in my chest. It wasn’t exactly guilt, but it was close. It was the feeling that I was failing at being “better.”
We live in this strange era where every single part of our existence is supposed to be an upward curve. We’re told to optimize our sleep, our gut health, our focus, our morning routines, and even our leisure time. If you’re not “leveling up,” you’re somehow falling behind. It’s exhausting, isn’t it? I’m an adult with a mortgage and a slightly temperamental car; I don’t always want to be optimized. Sometimes, I just want to exist.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately—this relentless pressure to maximize every second of the day. It’s like we’ve forgotten how to just be people. We’ve turned our lives into a series of projects to be managed rather than experiences to be lived. And honestly? I think we’re all a little burnt out by it.
The Myth of the “Perfect” Morning Routine
If you spend any time online, you’ve seen them. The videos of people waking up at 5:00 AM, immediately drinking a liter of lemon water, meditating for twenty minutes, journaling, hitting the gym, and then eating a bowl of something green and expensive before most of us have even found our slippers. For a long time, I tried to be that person. I really did.
I bought the expensive planner. I tried the cold showers (which, for the record, are just miserable). I tried to manifest my goals before the sun came up. But you know what happened? I just ended up tired. And a little bit cranky. I was so focused on checking off the boxes of a “successful” morning that I didn’t actually enjoy the morning itself. I missed the quiet. I missed the way the house feels when it’s still half-asleep.
There’s this weird idea that if you don’t start your day with a rigorous set of self-improvement rituals, you’ve somehow lost the day already. But some of my best days start with me hitting snooze three times and then sitting on the porch in my pajamas, watching a squirrel try to navigate the bird feeder. There is value in that softness. We don’t need to “win” the morning to have a meaningful day. Sometimes, the most productive thing you can do is let yourself wake up slowly, without a list of demands waiting for you on your nightstand.
When Our Hobbies Became Side Hustles
Have you noticed that we don’t really have “hobbies” anymore? We have “side hustles” or “personal brands.” It used to be that if you liked to bake, you just baked cakes and gave them to your neighbors. Now, if you’re good at baking, people immediately ask when you’re going to start an Instagram page or an Etsy shop. If you like to take photos, you’re told you should do headshots on the side. If you like to knit, you should be selling patterns online.
It’s a subtle kind of theft. We’re stealing the joy out of things by demanding they be profitable—or at least “productive.” I have a friend who is an incredible woodworker. He makes these beautiful, slightly crooked little birds out of scraps of cedar. People kept telling him to sell them, so he did. He opened a shop, started worrying about shipping rates and SEO and customer reviews, and you know what? He stopped making the birds. The thing he loved became just another item on his to-do list.
We need to reclaim the right to be bad at things. Or even the right to be good at things and do absolutely nothing with that talent. There is something so deeply human about doing a thing just because it feels good to do. I’ve started painting again lately. I’m terrible at it. The trees look like green blobs and the perspective is all wrong. But the feeling of the brush dragging across the paper? That’s magic. And because I know I’m never going to show it to anyone, there’s no pressure. It’s just for me. We need more things that are “just for us.”
The Death of the Amateur
Being an amateur is actually a beautiful thing. The word itself comes from the Latin amator, which means “lover.” An amateur is someone who does something for the love of it. But in our hyper-connected world, we’re constantly comparing our “Day One” to someone else’s “Year Ten.” We see a professional artist on our feed and we feel embarrassed by our own messy sketches. So, we stop. We give up before we’ve even started because we can’t see a path to perfection.
But the “messy middle” is where all the life is. It’s the burnt cookies, the wrong notes on the piano, the garden that grows more weeds than tomatoes. Those aren’t failures; they’re the evidence that you’re actually living. We have to stop worrying about the “output” and start focusing on the “input”—the experience of learning, failing, and trying again.
The Importance of “Dead Time”
We are terrified of being bored. The second there’s a lull—waiting for the elevator, standing in line for coffee, sitting at a red light—out comes the phone. We fill every tiny gap in our day with more information, more noise, more “content.” We’ve labeled this as staying informed or being efficient, but I think it’s actually making us lose our minds a little bit.
Our brains need “dead time.” They need those moments where nothing is happening so they can process what has happened. I remember as a kid, I’d spend hours just staring out the car window or lying on the floor looking at the ceiling. That’s when the best ideas happened. That’s when my mind would wander into weird, interesting places. Now, if I’m bored for even thirty seconds, I feel this twitchy urge to check my email.
I’ve started trying to leave my phone in another room for a few hours on the weekends. At first, it’s uncomfortable. I feel a bit restless, like I’m missing out on something important (I’m usually not). But after a while, the world starts to feel a bit more three-dimensional. I notice the way the light changes in the afternoon. I hear the neighbor’s wind chimes. I actually finish a thought without it being interrupted by a notification about a sale at a clothing store I don’t even like. It’s not a “digital detox”—it’s just remembering how to be present in a room.
Making Peace with Your “Un-Aesthetic” Life
There is a lot of talk about “intentional living” these days, which sounds great in theory. But in practice, it often just looks like a very expensive, very beige aesthetic. It’s all linen sheets and perfectly organized pantries and glass jars for everything. It’s beautiful to look at, sure, but it’s not exactly real life for most of us.
Real life is a bit sticky. It’s a junk drawer that won’t close properly. It’s a stack of dishes in the sink because you were too tired to wash them after dinner. It’s the scuff marks on the baseboards from when you moved the sofa. And honestly? Those things are okay. They’re the signs of a life being lived in a space. A house that looks like a museum isn’t a home; it’s a set.
I think we’d all be a lot happier if we stopped trying to curate our lives for an invisible audience. We spend so much energy trying to make our “existence” look good that we forget to make it feel good. Your home doesn’t need to be Pinterest-ready to be a sanctuary. Your life doesn’t need to be “aesthetic” to be meaningful. Sometimes, the most intentional thing you can do is let things be a little messy so you can focus on the people (or the pets, or the books) inside that mess.
- Stop checking your phone the very second you wake up. Give yourself ten minutes of peace.
- Do something you’re bad at, just for the fun of it.
- Let a hobby stay a hobby. Don’t try to monetize it.
- Practice “productive procrastination”—sometimes the dishes can wait while you sit in the sun.
- Notice when you’re comparing your reality to someone else’s highlight reel.
Reclaiming Your Headspace
So, where does that leave us? I’m not saying we should all quit our jobs and move to a cabin in the woods (though some days, that sounds pretty good). Most of us have responsibilities. We have bills to pay and people who count on us. We can’t just opt out of the modern world entirely.
But we can choose where we put our attention. We can decide that we’re not going to buy into the idea that we’re “never enough.” We can choose to be “okay” instead of “optimized.” It’s a quiet kind of rebellion, really. In a world that is constantly screaming at you to do more, buy more, and be more, choosing to be content with what you have is a radical act.
I’ve started asking myself a simple question when I feel that familiar pressure building up: “Is this actually important, or am I just performing?” Usually, it’s the latter. Usually, I’m trying to meet some standard that doesn’t actually exist. When I realize that, the pressure lifts just a little bit. I can breathe again.
It’s okay to have a slow Tuesday. It’s okay to not have a “five-year plan.” It’s okay to just do your job, come home, eat a decent sandwich, and go to bed. That is a valid, successful life. We don’t need to be exceptional every single day. Most days are just ordinary, and if we spend all our time chasing the extraordinary, we’re going to miss the quiet beauty of the “in-between.”
I think I’ll go throw out that sourdough starter now. It was an experiment, it didn’t really work, and I don’t actually like sourdough that much anyway. And you know what? That feels pretty good. I’m going to go make a regular cup of coffee, sit in my mismatched chair, and just look out the window for a while. No goals. No optimization. Just me, the coffee, and the dust motes dancing in the sun.