Easy like Sunday morning, except it's a Tuesday during a pandemic
Talk to me about your morning routine.
Years ago, before it was a thing you could monetize and make your entire personal brand as an influencer with curiously glowing skin, I was really into "morning routines." Not my own, obviously. But I liked the idea; the concept that everyone who was whatever version of successful all started their mornings off in a similar way, often at 4 or 5am. Such early wake-up times I couldn't realistically see myself entertaining, and perhaps that is why it's 11:07am and my day is just beginning (despite waking up at 7:17am). I also just doom-scrolled Twitter after I told myself I wasn't going to make it that kind of morning and now it's 11:21am. Surely, this is what successful people do??
Based off my increasingly passive romanticism, paired with my reluctance to Actually Google and instead just go off what I presumably know to be true, the following is commonly found in the elusive (yet totally obtainable?!) morning routine:
— First, a surprise. You have to start the night before! This shit is not a game! This can mean making sure you have breakfast and lunch planned out (you know, if that's your style and I guess it probably should be), your outfit ready to go (the fashionable people who make it all look so easy do this?), make a to-do list of tasks for the day ahead (have anxiety in advance!!), unplug from all your devices (why is this so hard to do when we *all know* it's the best pre-sleep decision to make), write in that gratitude journal you bought years ago and just rediscovered (not being sarcastic, research shows this helps!), meditate (samesies, re: research), visualize your success (okay, I Googled this one but yeah, sure), decompress, skip the wine (lol), clear your mind, hide your eyes from the toxic damage of blue light that radiates deep into your soul, etc... and also be sure to even plan your sleep schedule out (because while we all love laying there until 2 or 3am telling ourselves "if I fall asleep in the next two minutes I can still get six hours sleep," giving yourself ample time to naturally fall asleep apparently helps). Yes, do all of this. Got it? Okay, cool.
— Hi! I'm already tired!
— Once the new day arrives, I assume many successful people… make their bed (I personally do this religiously, but not until stewing in my own meaningless thoughts or reading the news on social media for one extravagantly unhealthy sixty-minute-plus period), begin doing the hygiene things (brush those teeth!), put off checking phones or email (I do not put this off, ever), stretch.
— Most successful humans get in a real legitimate workout or morning run or clock some time on the Peloton you bought with your monthly stimulus check (lol, imagine) or whatever. Just make sure you sweat and get that heart rate up so you can, you know, feel something. Then, put on music or a podcast, closely review and update your to-do list accordingly, shower, get ready, enjoy that fleeting moment of solace that comes from drinking a warm caffeinated beverage out of your all-time favorite mug, do something creative and/or personally fulfilling because you magically somehow still have the free time before work despite doing all of the Morning Routine Things and voila! Skip off into the limitless potential of a day you are absolutely going to win because you are a successful person and that is what successful people do!
Okay, but like...
How do people follow a strict, detailed morning routine like that and... still have morning left? I think that is what I would like to know the most. This, to me, is what gives it all that mysterious allure. I understand it's all possible if you start at insane Mark Wahlberg hours but... who is actually doing all these things on a daily basis? Who is that level of regimented in my real life? Reveal yourselves, because it’s not me!
Do we really actually truly think the likes of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are ~killing it~ in the mornings by stringently following such a pristine, carefully constructed series of minuscule-yet-monumental daily activities determined by science to be the most efficient and that is why they are the richest, most successful fuckbois on the planet??! I'm gonna go with a big obnoxious noopppeeee! Those motherfuckers get to outsource 95% of that shit. That way, they can spend their precious morning hours smiling at their real estate portfolios, daily stock performances and comma-laden bank account balances from the comfort of their king size beds constructed of horse hair, nestled in the most luxurious silk sheets that aren't even on the market let alone amazon dot com. Each morning, they wake up feeling refreshed, and don't even need to waste time by doing menial tasks like showering because they are cleansed by the metaphoric tears of average ass losers like you and me, baby!!!!!!
Anyways, I really don't care at all how billionaires spend their mornings. I don’t. Some celebrities, sure. You know me, I’m usually good for taking a casual gander at what some people do in the mornings and laugh at myself because that is clearly not my life or my habitual routine. But, today, I am the MOST interested in giving myself a pat on the back because I did nearly everything I wanted to do this morning before work and it's five minutes before noon!!!!
LET'S FUCKING GO.