I’ve reached the point in my life where my attempts at self-improvement actually make me feel worse than before I started. Want to feel like giving up before you even finish your coffee? Try out a trendy Morning Routine, which is basically a list of all the things you won’t have time to finish before you have to get out the door. It’s remarkably convenient to have all my morning failures grouped together like that; that way I don’t have to waste even more time trying to remember which tasks I didn’t complete. But at least I get to check one thing off every single day:
Feel Badly About Myself For Not Completing My Morning Routine ✔
According to the latest crop of influencers – who apparently don’t have kids, jobs, or actual responsibilities – I’m supposed to:
- Wake when my body is ready
- Lie in bed and let the sun gently stream over me
- Meditate
- Journal 3-5 pages of deep thoughts
- Start my day with lemon water and cayenne
- Get in a workout
- Drink my coffee mindfully with soft music playing
Let me go through a typical morning, and see how I measure up:
- Wake when my alarm screams at me
- Hit snooze too many times
- Panic because I hit snooze too many times
- Jump out of bed like I’m 20
- Realize I’m not 20 when I hit the ground
- Wake up the kids
- Go make coffee
- Wake up the kids again
- Start boiling water for the youngest’s school lunch thermos
- Wake up the kids again
- Prep breakfasts and lunches
- Head for the shower but discover I’ve been beat to both of them
- Start to take the dog out
- Wait, the dishwasher still needs to be loaded
- Right, the dog
- “Mom, are my black jeans clean?” – Oh no, start the laundry
- The bathroom is free! Run!
- Frantically head to the door to go to work – I’m on time!
- OH NO THE DOG
- Arrive to work 5 minutes late and out of breath with wet hair
The answer is no, I did not have time to journal my deep thoughts.
And if that wasn’t enough, I now have people on the internet telling me that the reason I can’t get all of the above done is that I don’t prioritize my self-care. I think self-care is absolutely necessary, but in this context it means … something else. It has morphed into a full-time side hustle, where I’m supposed to carve out at least two hours a day to dry-brush my lymphatic system with organic bamboo in a room lit only by candles and the soft glow of my aura – all while repeating Stuart Smalley affirmations that I’m good enough, smart enough, and people like me.
Meanwhile, my actual self-care routine looks more like remembering to put some moisturizer on my face once a week or whenever I notice the dry skin, inhaling the two bites of food that didn’t fit into my son’s lunch thermos and calling it breakfast, and scrolling the TikTok shop to find the right water bottle that will finally fix my personality.
Maybe self-care is less about buzzwords and more about remembering to eat breakfast once in awhile. Maybe it’s turning off the noise of unrealistic expectations and just enjoying the moments as they happen. Maybe it’s lowering the bar just enough so I can step over it without tripping again.
Besides, if I did happen to come across a candlelit room with organic bamboo brushes, I’d probably sit down for 3 minutes, get bored, and then knock over all the candles trying to leave.