#156 - First app of the morning

My phone is next to me when I wake up in the morning.

There's a lot of excuses as to why and possibly the most compelling argument is that my lights are now controlled by my phone, but I also find my reliance on tech to be (rightfully) deeply embarrassing so that's why I'm calling them excuses instead of reasons.

I used to roll over and check twitter to find out what was happening in the world.

When I lived on the west coast, so much had happened by the time I woke up it always felt like I was behind.

But twitter isn't what it used to be. And the world feels like it's crumpling in on itself day-by-day. So seeing that first thing in the morning sets me up for a certain tone.

And hey, we all know the best days are the ones where I wake up early, immediately get dressed, apply sunscreen, and go for a walk, but that's not going to be every day so the contingent plan recently has been:

checking Pinterest.

My tumblr feed is too nuanced to just be nice photos of whatever I've been searching for (recently it's been mostly older photos of Mary-Kate & Ashley's street style, New York City brownstones in autumn, color pallete combinations, typography, and mechanical keyboards. Fucking crushing it.

Would it be better if my first urge of the day wasn't to look at a screen? Yes! But we're weaning okay? We're getting there.

Lower the bar or continue down the path but doing something is always better than doing nothing.

Something doesn't have to be perfect in order to do it. In fact, perfection is stupid and unattainable and I hate that as AI becomes more accepted for use in humans talking to each other it "feels" more attainable.

I don't want to be so petrified of making a mistake that I allow a robot to make an attempt at humanity in my place.

A few months ago, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me... reported that doing one single bicep curl per year had a measurable difference than doing none. Would doing consistent sets be even better? Sure! Of course! You don't need anyone to tell you that working out more consistently is better than doing it sporadically. But if you don't work out at all, sporadic is incredible! There is so much self-judgement that I fear people are their own worst enemy by default.

If you don't know how to be nice to yourself, how will you have any compassion for the decisions you make?

It's a small change, to look at Pinterest, but it's turned out to be for the best and that's really encouraging.

Every day is a chance to make the better choice.

It's better for me to not immediately make myself angry and depressed first thing in the morning. It doesn't mean I don't engage with it within the next few hours, it just doesn't have to happen right away. I can ease my way back into the world and approach it with a lighter heart and still allow myself to feel deep sorrow throughout the day.

It's not a tradeoff. It's just a balancing act.