Go forth and be messy.
Not everything you read can be applied to you. If you’re anywhere online, you’re going to be bombarded from dusk till dawn with the best advice you need to control your body and your life and your mind and your spirit. And probably your fucking bowel movements.
People are going to tell you that if you just do all the things that the founders of million dollar companies do before 5 AM, and if you drink enough skinny tea, and if you keep your water levels the same as Gwyneth Paltrow’s, and if you outsource and prioritize like God knows who, you’ll be happy, healthy, wealthy and wise.
It’d be nice if that was the case. Can you imagine what life would be like if we could plug all of the advice and knowledge out there into our bodies and brains and tell ’em to execute them like a series of programs and commands?
You’re going to learn, that you can’t actually treat yourself like a machine. You can’t treat yourself like a robot or a computer or a great big awesomeness-producing-device, with this idea that if you pump in enough fuel in the form of productivity tips and time/life hacking and Quinoa, it’ll translate into happiness and achievement.
What we’re all prone to is just letting ourselves believe that the bullshit out there that’s meant to help us lead better lives must be 100 proof, and that if it doesn’t work, we must be faulty.
The reality is, not everything will work for everyone all the time. #
When you read a bunch of advice, whether it’s from me or anyone else, don’t take it as gospel. You can’t take it as gospel.
What you can do is take some inspiration. Keep an open mind to everything, and understand that there’s always a grain of truth or a sliver of usefulness in everything. As long as you don’t treat it like a religion, there’s some incredible information and ideas out there from people you’ve never even heard of yet that could change your life.
If it doesn’t change anything, and it doesn’t help, and you aren’t finding improvements, that’s okay too. It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you, and it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with the advice. It means you’re a human being, who is wildly different and unique. And maybe there’s just no match there.
You also have to take it easy on yourself. #
Because you’re a human, you’re going to have good days and bad days. Productive days, and Netflix/Dorito/Couch/Twitter days. There’s nothing wrong with that. Just because I need at least one day a week where I don’t get anything done, can barely get out of bed and lose myself in Halo doesn’t mean I won’t get somewhere in life.
It just means my brain is taking some time to reboot and my body doesn’t want to go to the gym, and my motivation is squarely focused on defending the galaxy from its enemies instead of writing.
You can’t let yourself be bullied into always panicking and refocusing and trying to remain productive and on top of the world, all the time. If you never give yourself leeway, I can already tell you what’ll happen. You’ll start to think that any failing or human chaos is unacceptable, and then when you miss one work out, or you just can’t face going in to work one day, you’ll feel like a massive failure and slip into a downward spiral.
That’s just about the worst thing you can do. You’ll lose faith in the one person you’re meant to believe in - yourself. I know that sounds like a Sesame Street lyric, but I stand by it.
Nobody is a machine. We’re all just a bunch of totally messy, incoherent weirdos hurtling around the galaxy on a spaceship we don’t fully understand, pretending we’ve got our shit together and competing with each other to see who’s the most convincing.
And that’s okay. Hey, if you want to make like Jack Dorsey and wake up with the dawn, more power to you. If you want to watch TV in the bath, you do you. Go nuts. Go jogging every morning if you want to, or eat birthday cake for breakfast if that’s your vibe.
Don’t hold yourself to an impossible standard. You can’t expect your mind and your body to always be switched on and be performing at full strength, and you sure as hell can’t assume that everything out there is going to work.
Life is strange and wild and unpredictable, and so are you. There’s comfort to be found in that. All you can do is your best, all you can expect is your best, all you can aim for is your best, but you can’t let yourself believe in perfection.
Go forth and be messy. #
xox Joany 🍕🍕🍕