I am holding your face in my hands so gently when I say this:
You cannot optimise your way out of being human
You can take every supplement, superfood, and nootropic going, and you'll still have days when you're ill, when you're tired, when you make stupid mistakes for no good goddamn reason.
You can read every book on non-violent communication, or gentle parenting, you can go to therapy, and be ever so mindful about the people you fill your time with, and you're still going to experience conflict, and misunderstandings, and grief.
You can plan your schedule 24/7 in carefully calculated 3 minute increments to ensure maximum productivity, but that train will still be late, that project will still run over, you'll somehow still never get around to learning that language, or that instrument, or that sport.
You can do your cardio, and track your macros, you can carb-load, or keto, or whatever the fuck dumbass extreme diet is this week's fountain of youth. You can do crosswords, and sudoku, and keep up a 12-step nightly beauty routine, but you're still going to age. You're still going to live through the gradual dissolution of the self, both physical and mental - and that's if you're lucky.
There is no one right way to live your life. Everyone you look at who is somehow managing to live the life you imagine is perfect for you has sacrificed something important to you, or has resources you don't.
I get it. I do! This mortal coil is wrapped so tight around you that you can't breathe if you stop a moment and let yourself be aware of it. There is a book on the shelf in your local library right now that would change you as a person if you read it, but you never will, because it's one of a million and there just isn't enough time.
You are an animal, just electricity in meat. The product of millions of generations of 'just good enough'. Let yourself be that. Learn to be just good enough. Let yourself lie in a sunbeam like a cat. Let yourself search for small pieces of joy like a magpie. Feel every transcendent and wretched inch of your humanity and howl at the moon like a wolf when there's too much of you to fit inside your skin.
You don't have to be perfect, but please, let yourself be you.
