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I thought I was being quite clever when I decided to try living like those uber-successful people you see in those inspirational LinkedIn posts. You know the ones – they wake up at 4 AM, run a half marathon before breakfast, meditate in an ice bath, and somehow make time to read War and Peace before most of us have hit the snooze button for the third time.

My journey into “optimizing my potential” (ugh, I actually just wrote that phrase) began innocently enough. I was scrolling through social media during a particularly mind-numbing team meeting when I stumbled across an article about the daily habits of tech billionaires. Something about it caught my attention – probably the desperate hope that there was some secret routine that could transform my deeply average career trajectory into something worthy of a TED Talk.

So I decided to give it a go. What’s the worst that could happen, right?

Turns out, quite a lot actually.

My first attempt at billionaire-level success started with setting my alarm for 5 AM. The articles all insisted this was non-negotiable – apparently, the world’s most successful people are all up before the sun, seizing the day while us ordinary mortals waste precious productivity hours on something as frivolous as adequate sleep.

That first morning, when my phone started blaring at 5 AM, I genuinely thought there was some sort of emergency. My roommate Kate later told me that the string of profanities I shouted was “impressively creative for someone supposedly half-asleep.”

But I dragged myself out of bed, fumbling in the darkness of my flat, determined to start my journey to success. The articles had been very clear – no checking emails or social media first thing. Instead, I was supposed to meditate, journal, and exercise before even considering looking at a screen.

So there I was, sitting cross-legged on my bedroom floor at 5:07 AM, trying to “clear my mind” while simultaneously fighting the urge to fall face-first back onto my pillow. After what felt like hours but was probably closer to three minutes, I gave up on meditation and moved on to journaling.

“Today I am grateful for…” I wrote, before spending a full minute trying to think of something I was actually grateful for at 5:12 AM. I eventually settled on “coffee, which I will hopefully drink soon.”

Next came exercise. The billionaire whose routine I was following apparently did an hour of high-intensity training every morning. I managed ten push-ups (at least three of which were questionable in form) before collapsing back onto my carpet, wondering if it was possible to die from early-morning exercise.

By the time I staggered into the office at 8:30, I felt like I’d already lived an entire day. My manager Simon took one look at me and asked if I was coming down with something.

“Just trying something new,” I mumbled, pouring my fourth coffee of the morning.

“Right,” he said, clearly unconvinced. “Don’t forget we’ve got the client presentation at 11.”

The presentation. Which I was supposed to have finished preparing for yesterday, but had instead spent the evening reading about morning routines and ordering an unnecessarily expensive journal with “HUSTLE” embossed on the cover.

Somehow I made it through that day, though I did nod off briefly during the afternoon budget meeting. When I finally got home, I collapsed into bed at 9 PM, setting my alarm once again for 5 AM. Success waits for no one, apparently.

By day three of my new routine, I’d made some adjustments. Meditation had been shortened to one deep breath and a quick “namaste” before moving on. Exercise had been redefined as “walking briskly to the bathroom.” But I was still getting up at 5 AM, which I considered a win.

That’s when I decided to incorporate another billionaire habit: the cold shower.

Listen, I’m from Manchester. I know cold. We’re not exactly strangers, cold and I. But voluntarily standing under freezing water at 5:15 AM is a special kind of torture I wasn’t prepared for.

The first time I tried it, my scream was so loud that my downstairs neighbor texted to check if I was being murdered. The second time, I managed to stay under the icy spray for almost twenty seconds before leaping out, shivering and questioning every life choice that had led me to this moment.

But the articles had promised increased alertness and improved circulation, so I persevered. And to be fair, I was definitely alert – it’s hard not to be when you’re convinced your extremities might be developing frostbite.

Week two of my success journey introduced another habit: strategic fasting. Apparently, many CEOs skip breakfast, eating their first meal around midday to promote something called “metabolic flexibility.” What they don’t mention is that it also promotes wanting to bite your coworker’s head off when they ask a perfectly reasonable question at 10 AM.

“Are you okay?” asked Priya from accounting after I’d snapped at her for breathing too loudly near my desk. “You’ve seemed a bit… off lately.”

“I’m optimizing my potential,” I said through gritted teeth, my stomach growling loud enough for her to hear.

“Right,” she said slowly, backing away. “Good luck with that.”

By the end of that week, Simon called me into his office.

“Look,” he said, “I don’t know what’s going on with you, but clients have noticed you seem… distracted. Jayden said you fell asleep while he was talking about their five-year growth strategy.”

“I was just resting my eyes,” I protested weakly. “It’s part of my new mindfulness practice.”

Simon didn’t look convinced. “Whatever it is, sort it out. We’ve got the Henderson pitch next week, and I need you firing on all cylinders.”

Rather than taking this as a sign to maybe ease up on my new routine, I doubled down. If getting up at 5 AM and taking cold showers wasn’t transforming me into a productivity powerhouse, clearly I wasn’t doing enough.

So I added more billionaire habits. I bought a ridiculous standing desk converter that took up half my workstation. I started drinking this vile green concoction that some tech CEO swore by – it tasted like lawn clippings mixed with regret. I even tried that bizarre thing where you schedule your day into 5-minute increments, which mostly resulted in me being perpetually seven increments behind by 9:30 AM.

The final straw came during the Henderson pitch. I’d been up since 5 AM (obviously), had subjected myself to an arctic shower, choked down my lawn clipping smoothie, and was now on hour six of my strategic fast. Simon was walking the clients through our proposal when he turned to me for input on the market analysis section.

What happened next is still a bit hazy. According to office legend (and the horrified expressions of everyone present), I stood up, announced, “The market is bullshit, success is a scam, and I haven’t properly slept in seventeen days,” before promptly fainting face-first onto the conference table.

I came to with the Henderson clients staring down at me in alarm and Simon looking like he was contemplating both my murder and his own career prospects.

“He’s been unwell,” I heard Simon say as I blinked back to consciousness. “Nothing to worry about.”

After the clients left (without signing the contract, unsurprisingly), Simon helped me to his office and closed the door.

“What the actual hell?” he asked, remarkably calm given the circumstances.

And so I told him. About the 5 AM wake-ups, the cold showers, the fasting, the ridiculous productivity hacks that had left me exhausted, hungry, and apparently prone to conference room outbursts.

When I finished, Simon stared at me for a long moment before speaking.

“Let me get this straight,” he said slowly. “You’ve been torturing yourself because… some billionaires allegedly do these things?”

Put like that, it did sound rather stupid.

“You do realize,” Simon continued, “that most of these people have staff, right? They have personal chefs and assistants and people who handle the actual logistics of their lives. They don’t have to commute on the Northern line or deal with our ancient printer when it decides to eat important documents.”

I hadn’t, in fact, considered this.

“Also,” he added, “they’re probably lying. No one actually enjoys cold showers. That’s just nonsense people say to sound hardcore.”

The next day, I slept until 7 AM, took a gloriously hot shower, ate toast for breakfast, and arrived at work feeling more human than I had in weeks. Simon had been surprisingly understanding, though he did suggest I “maybe keep the market outbursts to a minimum in future.”

The thing I’ve realized is that most of these “habits of successful people” articles miss the most important context: these routines work for these specific individuals, with their specific circumstances, temperaments, and yes, privilege. The CEO who wakes up at 4 AM probably goes to bed at 9 PM and doesn’t have to cook dinner or do laundry after a full day’s work.

If I tried to keep up with half the stuff in those articles long-term, I wouldn’t become a billionaire – I’d become unemployed. Which, come to think of it, would give me plenty of time for morning meditation. Silver linings, eh?

So I’ve developed my own “habits of successful people” – where success is defined as “maintaining employment and basic human functioning.” I go to bed at a reasonable hour. I shower at a temperature that doesn’t induce screaming. I eat when I’m hungry. Revolutionary stuff, I know.

And you know what? I’m much better at my job now that I’m not hallucinating from sleep deprivation and hunger. Turns out the secret to success might just be… taking care of yourself like a normal person? Someone should write an article about that.

I like to consider myself a tech-savvy millennial. I’ve got all the apps, I doom-scroll with the best of them, and I was an early adopter of that weird phase when everyone was making their photos look like they were taken in 1977. But there’s something particularly strange about opening my phone each morning and having an algorithm tell me whether or not I’m fertile today.

It started innocently enough. After going off hormonal birth control—a whole saga involving migraines, mood swings, and one particularly memorable crying jag over a pet food commercial—I decided I wanted to “get in touch with my natural cycle.” God, even typing that makes me cringe a bit. But there I was, 32 years old and realizing I had absolutely no idea what my body was up to without pharmaceutical intervention.

So I did what any modern woman would do: I downloaded an app. Not just any app, mind you. I researched. I read reviews. I compared features. I ended up choosing one with a soft pink interface and cute little icons that promised to help me “understand my unique cycle” through the “power of data.” It had a 4.8-star rating and over 30,000 reviews. Surely 30,000 menstruating people couldn’t be wrong?

The first few days were a bit like getting a new fitness tracker—oddly exciting. I diligently logged everything the app asked for: period start date, flow heaviness (the icon for “heavy” was hilariously dramatic, like a crime scene), mood, sleep quality, cervical mucus consistency (yep, we’re going there), basal body temperature, and about fifteen other symptoms I’d never paid attention to before.

“Do your breasts feel tender?” the app would ask, and I’d think, “I dunno, do they?” before poking myself experimentally in the chest while waiting for the kettle to boil.

“Rate your energy level from 1-5,” it would prompt, and I’d stare blankly at my screen trying to remember what normal energy even feels like. Is being able to both work AND make dinner a 3 or a 4? Is wanting to nap under my desk at 2 PM standard operating procedure or a sign of fatigue?

By the end of the first month, I had essentially created a comprehensive dossier on myself that even my gynecologist doesn’t have. The app knew when I’d had headaches, when I’d felt bloated, when I’d been constipated, when I’d been in the mood for sex, and when I’d wanted to murder strangers for walking too slowly in front of me at Tesco.

And then came the predictions.

“Your fertile window will begin in 3 days,” the app announced one morning, with the confidence of someone who had actually examined my ovaries rather than just processed the data points I’d fed it.

“How do you know that?” I whispered to my phone, both impressed and slightly unnerved. I hadn’t even gotten out of bed yet, and already an algorithm was making pronouncements about my reproductive system.

The next day, the app sent me a notification: “Remember to log your cervical mucus today!”

I was in a meeting when this popped up on my screen. Thankfully my phone was face-down, but still, it felt like a bizarrely intimate interruption. Here’s Kate from accounting talking about quarterly projections, and meanwhile, my phone is nudging me about bodily fluids.

By month three, I had developed a strange relationship with the app. I was checking it first thing every morning, sometimes before I’d even properly woken up. It would tell me what day of my cycle I was on, predict my mood, and inform me whether today was a day to “avoid intercourse” or “ideal for conception” (neither of which applied to my perpetually single status, but thanks for the reminder, app).

The weird thing is how quickly I began to trust it. When the app told me I would start feeling pre-menstrual symptoms on a particular Wednesday, I found myself thinking, “Oh, so THAT’S why I feel off today.” Even though I’d felt perfectly fine until I read the notification.

One evening, I was out with my friend Mia, who’d recently started using the same app.

“It’s uncanny,” she said, sipping her wine. “Yesterday the app told me I’d be especially creative during my follicular phase, and then I had this amazing brainstorming session at work.”

“Do you think you had a good brainstorm because your hormones were actually optimal for creativity, or because the app suggested you would?” I asked.

She paused, glass halfway to her mouth. “Huh. I don’t know.”

That’s when I started noticing the placebo effect in my own interactions with the app. If it told me I was likely to have low energy on a particular day, I’d feel tired. If it predicted increased libido, I’d suddenly notice attractive people on my commute. The app was creating a feedback loop—telling me how I should feel, which influenced how I actually felt, which I then dutifully logged, further training the algorithm to predict that same pattern.

Around month five of this experiment in digital body literacy, things got even weirder. The app started serving me targeted ads. Suddenly my feed was full of supplements “specifically formulated for your luteal phase,” fertility-friendly lubricants (again, single), organic cotton tampons, cycle-syncing meal plans, and something called “womb healing meditation downloads.”

I’d essentially handed over the most intimate details of my biology to a for-profit company that was now trying to sell me things based on that information. And I’d done it voluntarily. Eagerly, even.

The breaking point came on a Tuesday in August. I’d been feeling a bit off all day—crampy, irritable, bloated. Classic PMS symptoms. But according to my app, I wasn’t due to start my period for another week. For the first time, I found myself doubting my own bodily sensations because they didn’t align with what the algorithm predicted.

“Maybe I’m just stressed,” I thought. “The app knows my cycle better than I do at this point.”

Two hours later, I got my period. A full week “early” according to the technology that was supposedly tracking my unique patterns.

I stared at the app in betrayal. After months of meticulous data entry, after sharing literally every twinge and mood swing and night of poor sleep, the algorithm had gotten it completely wrong. And worse—I had trusted it over the actual physical symptoms I was experiencing.

That night, I found myself going down an internet rabbit hole about fertility apps. What I discovered wasn’t exactly comforting. A 2018 study had evaluated 73 fertility apps and found that most of them had either no scientific evidence backing their methods or were based on outdated research. Another study showed that even the most accurate apps only correctly identified the fertile window about 21% of the time.

Twenty-one percent. You’d literally have better odds flipping a coin.

And yet millions of people use these apps for everything from avoiding pregnancy to trying to conceive. We’re making major life decisions based on technology that, statistically speaking, is wrong more often than it’s right.

The real kicker? I started looking into what happens to all that intimate data we’re feeding these apps. Most of them have privacy policies that would make your hair curl. Several popular fertility apps have been caught sharing user data with third parties including Facebook, Google, and various marketing companies—often without clear consent from users.

One app was even sharing information with the user’s employer about their fertility intentions. Imagine your boss knowing you’re trying to get pregnant before you’re ready to disclose that information.

I thought about all the things my app knew about me. Not just when I menstruated, but when I had sex, when I was stressed, when I didn’t sleep well, when I had digestive issues or headaches or mood swings. I had essentially created a comprehensive health profile of myself and handed it over to a commercial entity with virtually no regulation or oversight.

The next morning, I deleted the app.

It felt oddly liberating, like cutting off a clingy friend who texts too much. But I also felt a bit lost. I’d outsourced awareness of my own body to an algorithm for so long that I wasn’t sure I remembered how to pay attention to it myself.

So I bought an actual paper calendar and started keeping track the old-fashioned way. Just basic information—period start and end dates, and any particularly notable symptoms. No more obsessive logging of every twinge and mood fluctuation.

It’s been four months now, and something interesting has happened. Without the app telling me what to expect or how to feel on any given day, I’ve actually gotten better at noticing patterns myself. I can tell when I’m approaching my period because my body gives me clear signals—if I pay attention to them.

I’ve also realized how much anxiety the app was causing me. The constant notifications, the pressure to log every symptom, the feeling that I was somehow “doing it wrong” if my experience didn’t match the predictions—it was exhausting. Not to mention the weird burden of knowing that incredibly private information about me was floating around in a database somewhere, possibly being shared with God knows who.

Don’t get me wrong—I still use plenty of health tech. My fitness tracker counts my steps, my meditation app guides my breathing, and I’ve got at least three different applications to remind me to drink water throughout the day. But there’s something different about outsourcing awareness of your reproductive cycle—something more fundamental and personal.

Maybe some people find these apps genuinely helpful, and I’m not here to judge that. But for me, the experiment in algorithmic body awareness taught me something important: no app knows my body better than I do. It just took deleting one to remember that.

There’s something oddly satisfying about highlighting a passage in a self-help book. That little swipe of neon yellow across a particularly profound sentence feels like a tiny victory, doesn’t it? Like I’m saying, “Yes, this right here—this is the nugget of wisdom that’s going to change everything.”

I’ve got a confession to make. My bookshelf is packed with self-improvement books that look like they’ve been attacked by a highlighter-wielding maniac. The pages are practically glowing with all those marked passages about morning routines, habit formation, productivity systems, and mindset shifts. My Kindle is even worse—digital highlights upon highlights, forming a virtual paper trail of all the life-changing advice I’ve consumed over the years.

And yet, here I am, still hitting snooze six times every morning, still procrastinating on important projects until the last minute, still scrolling mindlessly through social media when I should be meditating or whatever it is successful people do with their free time.

It’s not that I don’t want to change. God knows I do. Every time I crack open a new self-help book, I’m absolutely convinced that this one will be different. This will be the book that finally transforms me into that hyper-productive, emotionally balanced, physically fit person who meal preps on Sundays and never forgets to floss.

Take “Atomic Habits” by James Clear. I highlighted practically half that book. My favorite passage (which I can recite by heart because I’ve read it approximately 47 times) is about how tiny, incremental improvements add up to massive changes over time. One percent better every day for a year means you’re 37 times better by the end. Brilliant! Revolutionary! Exactly what I needed to hear!

Did I implement any of the habit-stacking techniques he suggested? Nope. Did I create obvious cues for new behaviors or make them satisfying as he advised? Also no. But boy, did I highlight those sections with enthusiasm.

Or how about “The 5 AM Club” by Robin Sharma? I was so inspired by the concept that I set my alarm for 5 AM the very next day. I highlighted all those passages about how the early morning hours were “holy time” and how this predawn routine would essentially make me superhuman. My alarm did indeed go off at 5 AM. I remember this because I immediately turned it off and went back to sleep until 8:30. But those highlights remain, taunting me every time I flip through the pages.

The problem isn’t limited to productivity books either. My copy of “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck” is absolutely riddled with highlighted sections about choosing what to care about and letting go of everything else. Have I become more discerning about my emotional investments? Well, I spent forty minutes yesterday worrying about whether my email to a colleague sounded passive-aggressive, so… that’s a no.

What’s happening here is something psychologists call the “illusion of progress.” By highlighting a passage, I feel like I’ve somehow absorbed or implemented the advice. There’s this brief moment of “Yes, I get it now!” followed by exactly zero actual changes in my behavior. It’s like my brain thinks noting the advice is the same as taking it.

My friend Zoe has a theory about this. She reckons highlighting is just sophisticated procrastination. “You’re basically saying, ‘This is important, but not important enough for me to do anything about it right now,’” she told me over coffee last week. “It’s like creating a to-do list for your future self, who you always imagine will be more disciplined than your current self.”

I hate to admit it, but she’s probably right. Future Me is always going to be amazing—organized, disciplined, motivated. Current Me just wants to highlight something insightful and then reward herself with a biscuit and a scroll through Instagram.

The worst part is, I know the advice in these books actually works. I have this colleague, Emma, who read “Deep Work” by Cal Newport around the same time I did. While I was busy highlighting passages about eliminating distractions and scheduling focused work time, Emma was actually implementing these strategies. She started blocking off two hours each morning for uninterrupted work, turned off notifications, and even got one of those timed lockboxes for her phone.

Six months later, she’d finished the novel she’d been talking about writing for years. Meanwhile, I had… a very thoroughly highlighted copy of “Deep Work” and the same scattered attention span I’d always had.

It’s not just books either. I’ve got a “Notes” folder on my phone filled with inspirational quotes and tips from podcasts, articles, and YouTube videos. I dutifully jot these things down like they’re sacred texts, and then never look at them again. I’ve essentially created a digital graveyard of good intentions.

My mum always says, “Knowing and not doing is the same as not knowing.” When she first told me this, I thought it was just one of those annoying parent-isms that don’t really mean anything. But the older I get, the more I realize she’s onto something. All this highlighted wisdom sitting on my shelf isn’t doing me any good if it stays trapped between the pages.

I think there’s also something comforting about highlighting. It gives us the feeling that we’re taking control of our lives, making positive changes, without the discomfort of actually having to change anything. It’s change without change—all of the self-satisfaction with none of the hard work.

Last month, I reached a particularly low point in this cycle. I caught myself highlighting a passage in a book about overcoming procrastination while actively procrastinating on a project due the next day. The irony was so thick you could spread it on toast. That’s when I decided something had to give.

So I tried an experiment. I took one—just one—highlighted passage from “Atomic Habits” and committed to implementing it for a week. It was a simple technique about habit stacking—attaching a new habit to an existing one. I decided I would do five push-ups every time I waited for my kettle to boil.

Was it life-changing? Not exactly. But it was something. For one week, I actually implemented advice instead of just noting it. My arms were sore, but I felt strangely accomplished. Not because five push-ups a few times a day is going to transform me into a fitness guru, but because I’d broken the highlight-and-ignore cycle.

This got me thinking about why we—or at least I—fall into this trap in the first place. I think a big part of it is that highlighting feels productive. It gives us the sensation of progress without demanding any real work or discomfort. It’s also reversible—highlighting doesn’t commit me to anything. I can always decide later that the advice isn’t for me.

Actually implementing advice, on the other hand, requires commitment. It means disrupting comfortable routines, pushing through resistance, and potentially facing failure. No wonder highlighting seems like the more attractive option.

There’s also the issue of overwhelm. Most self-help books are packed with advice—implementation strategies, mindset shifts, exercises, and reflections. Trying to implement everything at once is a recipe for failure. But it’s hard to choose just one or two things to focus on when everything seems so important and potentially life-changing. So instead, we highlight it all and implement nothing.

I’ve started a new approach now. When I read a self-help book, I still highlight (old habits die hard), but I force myself to choose one—only one—piece of advice to implement immediately. I write it on a sticky note and put it somewhere I’ll see it every day. Once that behavior becomes relatively automatic, I might add another. It’s slow going, but it’s better than a bookshelf full of highlighted advice that never makes it into my actual life.

I’ve also started being more selective about which books I read in the first place. Instead of jumping on every new self-improvement bestseller, I ask myself: “Am I prepared to actually do what this book suggests?” If the answer is no, I don’t buy it. No matter how life-changing the reviews say it is.

Look, I’m not saying I’ve solved this problem completely. Just yesterday, I caught myself highlighting a section in “Digital Minimalism” about the importance of regular digital detoxes—while simultaneously getting distracted by Twitter notifications. Old habits really do die hard.

But I’m trying to be more honest with myself about the gap between knowing and doing. Maybe that’s the first step—acknowledging that highlighting a passage doesn’t magically transfer its wisdom into my daily life.

So if you’re anything like me, with a bookshelf full of highlighted self-help books and not much to show for it, know that you’re not alone. Maybe the real self-improvement isn’t found in highlighting one more profound passage, but in finally putting the highlighter down and doing something—even something tiny—with the knowledge we already have.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some push-ups to do. The kettle’s just boiled.

I’m still trying to figure out exactly when it happened. That moment when my carefully constructed work-life balance tipped over into just… work. It wasn’t a dramatic collapse—more like watching sand slowly slide through an hourglass until suddenly you realize the top chamber is empty and you’ve been staring at it for ages without noticing.

Last Tuesday I found myself sitting in my car at 11:43 PM in the empty parking lot of my apartment complex, still on a work call. My laptop was balanced on my knees, the blue light illuminating my exhausted face in the darkness as I nodded along to someone explaining why we needed to revise the entire presentation before tomorrow morning’s client meeting. I’d been on that call for over two hours. I’d started it at my desk, continued it while making dinner (well, microwaving a sad frozen meal), and was now finishing it in my car because I’d needed to move my vehicle before midnight to avoid the street cleaning ticket I’d already gotten twice this month.

It hit me then: I wasn’t balancing work and life. I was just working in different locations.

When did this become normal? I remember a time—not even that long ago, maybe three years?—when I’d have laughed at the idea of taking work calls after 7 PM. I used to have hobbies, for god’s sake. Real ones, not just “catching up on industry podcasts while doing laundry” which is apparently what passes for leisure in my life now.

I used to make pottery. Had a whole little setup in the spare room of my old place. I’d spend Sunday afternoons with clay-covered hands, making lumpy, imperfect mugs that my mum would proudly display in her kitchen even though they all leaned slightly to the left. Can’t remember the last time I touched clay. The wheel’s probably gathering dust in my storage unit alongside the camping gear I bought four summers ago for trips I kept canceling because deadlines kept shifting.

It wasn’t always like this. When I started my career, I was almost militant about boundaries. I’d read all those articles about burnout and workplace culture, and I swore I wouldn’t become one of “those people” who answered emails at midnight or canceled dinner plans for last-minute client emergencies.

I’d watch my boss Mark stay online until ridiculous hours, sending emails timestamped 2:34 AM, and think: that poor sod needs to get a life. I pitied him, with his permanent eye bags and his sad desk lunches eaten during meetings. “That will never be me,” I’d smugly think, closing my laptop at 5:30 PM on the dot.

Funny how these things creep up on you.

First, it was the occasional urgent email I’d check during dinner. No big deal, just a quick reply, fork in one hand, phone in the other. Then it was bringing my laptop home “just in case” something came up over the weekend. Then it was setting up my home office “properly” because, well, if I was going to work from home occasionally, might as well be comfortable, right?

Before I knew it, the boundaries had blurred so completely I couldn’t see them anymore. My kitchen table became a secondary desk. My phone became a permanent appendage, notifications buzzing through dinner, through films, through conversations with actual humans standing in front of me. I started keeping a notepad by my bed because “my best ideas come right before sleep” (or more accurately, because work anxiety wouldn’t let my brain shut down).

The promotion didn’t help. When they made me team lead last year, I was chuffed—validation, finally! A proper title, a bit more money, respect. What they didn’t mention in the congratulatory meeting was that I was effectively signing away whatever remained of my personal time. Suddenly, I wasn’t just responsible for my work, but for everyone else’s too. And since Charlie and Priya both had young kids and “real reasons” to log off at sensible hours, guess who picked up the slack when deadlines loomed?

Me. Always me.

“It’s just a busy period,” became my mantra. I said it to friends when canceling plans. I said it to my partner when missing yet another dinner. I said it to myself at 1 AM as I answered “just one more email” before sleep. The busy period never ended.

My body started sending warning signals. Tension headaches that lasted for days. A persistent eye twitch that made me look slightly deranged in client meetings. The time I actually fell asleep standing up in the shower (I still have the bruise from where I whacked my elbow on the tile).

But the real wake-up call—and Christ, isn’t it pathetic that this is what it took—came from my dentist, of all people.

“You’ve cracked another tooth,” Dr. Patel said, peering into my mouth with that little mirror thing. “That’s the second one this year. Are you grinding your teeth at night?”

I mumbled something incoherent around his fingers.

“You need to reduce your stress levels,” he said, with the casual confidence of someone stating the blindingly obvious. “Your jaw is so tight I’m surprised you can eat anything tougher than yogurt.”

I nearly laughed in his face. Reduce stress? Sure! I’d get right on that, right after I finished the quarterly reports, onboarded the new hire, fixed the disaster our marketing team had created with the website, and somehow squeezed in five hours of sleep.

But driving home from that appointment, with a referral for a night guard clutched in my hand (another appointment I’d have to somehow fit into my calendar), I found myself crying. Not dramatic sobbing or anything—just silent tears tracking down my face as I sat at a red light. I couldn’t even tell you exactly why. It was like my body was grieving something my brain hadn’t fully acknowledged yet.

That night, I did something I hadn’t done in ages. I dug out my old journal—the nice one with the leather cover my sister gave me for Christmas two years ago, still mostly empty—and I made a list of everything I’d missed recently because of work.

My nephew’s birthday party. A weekend trip to the coast with friends. Six—SIX!—dinner dates with my partner, who was showing the patience of a saint but whose texts were getting increasingly terse. My mum’s retirement dinner (that one still makes me wince with shame). The book club I’d joined and attended exactly once. The half-marathon I’d signed up for and never trained for.

The list went on for three pages.

I’d always prided myself on being dedicated, on going the extra mile. Somewhere along the line, I’d confused dedication with self-destruction. I’d started wearing exhaustion like a badge of honor, as if the circles under my eyes were medals proving my commitment.

Even worse, I’d started judging colleagues who didn’t do the same. When Dave from accounting mentioned he was leaving at 4 PM for his daughter’s school play, I’d smiled and said “of course, family first!” while mentally recategorizing him as “not serious about his career.” What a load of toxic rubbish.

It’s not like I’d even been explicitly asked to work these hours. There was no boss standing over my shoulder demanding I sacrifice my personal life on the altar of increased productivity. I’d done it to myself, brick by brick, building a prison of perpetual availability.

“Setting boundaries is an act of self-respect,” my therapist had told me back when I still had time for therapy. (I canceled those appointments six months ago because they conflicted with our team status meetings. Another stellar decision.)

The thing about boundaries is that once they’re gone, rebuilding them is so much harder than establishing them in the first place. It’s like trying to put up a fence after letting everyone use your garden as a shortcut for years. People get used to walking through. They get annoyed when suddenly there’s an obstacle.

Still, the car park epiphany shook me enough to try. The next day, I did something radical: I blocked out my lunch hour in my calendar as “unavailable.” Revolutionary stuff, I know. I actually left the building, walked to the park across the street, and sat on a bench eating my sandwich. I felt like I was skiving off, kept checking my phone nervously as if expecting an urgent “WHERE ARE YOU?” message.

None came. The world didn’t end. The client didn’t spontaneously combust. My team somehow managed without my constant hovering presence for a whole sixty minutes.

Small steps, I told myself. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and my work-life boundaries wouldn’t be either.

I’d love to tell you I had some dramatic transformation—that I marched into my boss’s office the next day and demanded radical changes, or that I quit dramatically to become a pottery teacher in the countryside. Life rarely works that neatly.

What I did do was set an alarm on my phone for 6 PM every day labeled “GO HOME.” When it goes off, I start wrapping up, no matter what. Sometimes I still need an extra half hour. Sometimes it’s an hour. But I no longer find myself still at my desk at 9 PM wondering where the day went.

I turned off email notifications on my phone. I redownloaded that meditation app I paid for and never used. I called my partner and scheduled a proper date night with my phone turned off. I apologized to my mum and promised to be present for the family dinner this Sunday.

Baby steps.

The work is still there. The deadlines still loom. I still care about doing my job well. But I’m slowly remembering that I am not just my productivity, not just a collection of tasks completed and emails answered. There’s a whole person underneath the professional facade—a person who likes bad reality TV and spicy food and sleeping past 6 AM on weekends.

That person deserves time too.

Yesterday, I found myself back in my car after work. But this time, my laptop was closed in my bag, and I was sitting there not because of a call, but because a song I love came on the radio and I wanted to hear it through before going inside. Five minutes of nothing but music. It felt like the most luxurious thing in the world.

Small victories. One day at a time.

I’d been looking forward to this wellness retreat for months. Six days of digital detox in a converted farmhouse somewhere in rural Wales – no phones, no laptops, no Wi-Fi. Just meditation, yoga, healthy food, and reconnecting with myself. The brochure promised transformation. A reset. “Return to your life refreshed and recentered,” it said, alongside photos of serene-looking people in linen clothing gazing thoughtfully at mountains.

What it didn’t mention was the itching. The mental itching that starts about four hours after your devices are ceremoniously locked away in little wooden boxes (“You’ll get them back on the final morning, don’t worry!”). That persistent, maddening itch that says: I wonder if anyone’s emailed me? Has that client responded? Did my mum try to call? What’s happening on Twitter? Is the world ending? Has that photo I posted got any likes?

I wasn’t expecting to feel this way. I’d been smugly telling colleagues for weeks how ready I was to disconnect. “I can’t wait to just unplug,” I’d announced, stirring my oat milk latte with self-satisfaction. “We’re all too addicted to our screens anyway.”

My friend Jessie had snorted. “You? Unplugged? You check your phone when you go to the loo.”

“That’s different,” I’d protested. “That’s just… efficient use of time.”

But now, sitting cross-legged on a yoga mat while our retreat leader Willow (definitely not her real name) guided us through our intentions for the week, all I could think about was my emails.

“Breathe into the space of possibility,” Willow was saying in that particular voice wellness practitioners seem to develop – sort of whispery but also somehow loud. “Visualize yourself releasing the digital tethers that bind you to stress and distraction.”

I was visualizing myself releasing the latch on that wooden box and checking if my editor had gotten back to me about that pitch.

“Notice any resistance coming up,” Willow continued, somehow staring directly at me despite having her eyes closed. “That resistance is your addiction speaking. Acknowledge it, thank it, and let it float away.”

I acknowledged it alright. My addiction was speaking in full paragraphs, possibly with PowerPoint slides. It was telling me that this whole digital detox thing was a terrible mistake, that important things were happening without me, that I was missing out on… something. Anything. Everything.

The first night was the worst. I lay in my spartan but expensive room (the retreat’s marketing materials used the word “simple” about sixteen times, which apparently meant “we’ve charged you four-star prices for a youth hostel aesthetic”), staring at the ceiling. My hand kept reaching for my phone on the bedside table before remembering it wasn’t there. It felt like phantom limb syndrome, but for my iPhone.

At breakfast the next morning, I scanned the dining room for fellow sufferers. Most people seemed irritatingly serene already, munching on their ancient grain porridge and chatting quietly. But then I spotted him – a man about my age, pale, with the slightly wild eyes of someone who’d spent the night contemplating breaking into wherever they kept our digital contraband.

I sat down across from him with my own bowl of what tasted like warm wallpaper paste with blueberries.

“You look how I feel,” I said.

He glanced up, grateful for the interruption to his staring contest with his spoon. “Is it that obvious?”

“The twitching gave it away.”

“I’m Dan,” he said. “I run an e-commerce business. This retreat was my wife’s idea.”

“And where is your wife?” I asked, looking around.

“Sunrise meditation on the hill. She’s thriving.” He said this with the mild contempt of someone watching another person enjoy a food they find disgusting.

“I’m Katie,” I offered. “Freelance writer. This retreat was my own terrible idea.”

And just like that, I’d found my digital withdrawal buddy. We spent the morning whispering during yoga, making up emails we might be missing. “Dear sir/madam, We’re pleased to inform you that you’ve won five million pounds. Please respond within 24 hours or the money goes to your arch-nemesis.”

During the afternoon “Mindful Walking” session, where we were supposed to silently notice the sensation of each footstep connecting with the earth, Dan and I trailed behind the group.

“What I don’t understand,” I whispered, “is why they can’t give us like, 30 minutes of controlled internet time each day. It’s not like we’re in rehab.”

“Aren’t we, though?” Dan replied. “My screen time notification last week said I average 7.4 hours a day on my phone. That’s… not great.”

“Yes, but that includes useful things. Work emails. Research. Maps. It’s not like we’re just playing Candy Crush.” I paused. “How far are we from the nearest town?”

Dan’s eyes widened. “Are you suggesting a prison break?”

I wasn’t. Not really. But the thought had definitely crossed my mind that if we could just get to a place with Wi-Fi, check our messages, and come back, no one would know. We could scratch the itch and then fully commit to the wellness experience.

By day three, things got weird. I found myself genuinely enjoying a fermented foods workshop. I had a conversation about composting that lasted forty minutes. I cried during a guided meditation about gratitude. When I mentioned this to Dan over lunch (some kind of lentil situation that tasted far better than it looked), he nodded sagely.

“Stockholm syndrome,” he said. “We’re bonding with our captors.”

But that evening, as I watched the sunset from the retreat’s garden, I realized something unsettling. The itching had subsided a bit. Not completely – I still reflexively reached for my phone whenever I had a spare moment – but the frantic need had dulled. I’d gone almost 72 hours without knowing what was happening in the world, and the world had apparently continued spinning.

Instead of my usual bedtime routine of scrolling through social media until my eyes burned, I’d been reading an actual, physical book borrowed from the retreat’s small library. I’d slept better last night than I had in months.

Was I… benefiting from this torture?

On day four, disaster struck. I was heading to the compost toilet (an experience that deserves its own essay) when I heard it – the unmistakable notification ping of an iPhone. I froze, my head swiveling like a predator that had just detected prey.

The sound came again. I followed it around the side of the building to find Willow, our serene retreat leader, hunched over a smartphone, furiously texting.

Our eyes met. Guilt flashed across her face, quickly replaced with the calm mask of wellness.

“Katie,” she said evenly. “This isn’t what it looks like.”

“It looks like you’re texting while the rest of us have had our digital pacifiers confiscated,” I said, trying to keep the accusation out of my voice and failing completely.

“I need to stay connected for retreat business,” she explained. “Emergencies, bookings, that sort of thing.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, eyeing the phone like it was a bar of chocolate in a weight loss camp. “Those look like Instagram notification symbols from here.”

Willow sighed, then surprised me by laughing. “Busted. Look, I believe in everything we teach here about digital mindfulness. I really do. But I’m also running a business, and yes, sometimes I check Instagram. I’m only human.”

I should have been angry at the hypocrisy, but instead, I found myself asking: “Can I just check my email? Five minutes. I swear I’ll go right back to being mindfully disconnected.”

She hesitated, then handed me her phone. “Five minutes. This never happened.”

My hands were actually shaking as I logged into my email account. There were 147 new messages. Most were junk. Some were newsletters. A few work things that could definitely wait. Nothing life-changing. Nothing that couldn’t have waited three more days.

But oh, the relief of knowing that.

I handed the phone back to Willow after exactly five minutes. “Thank you. I needed that.”

“What we tell ourselves we need and what we actually need are often very different things,” she said, slipping back into retreat-leader speak. “But sometimes scratching the itch helps you realize it’s just an itch, not a wound.”

That night at dinner, I debated whether to tell Dan about my illicit email check. I decided against it; he seemed to be going through his own process. He’d actually attended the optional dawn meditation that morning and reported that he’d “kind of gotten something out of it, maybe.”

The last two days of the retreat passed in a blur of activities I’d have normally rolled my eyes at but found myself enjoying – sound baths, intention setting, even a workshop on making your own natural deodorant (which, let’s be honest, was more necessary for some retreat participants than others by this point).

On the final morning, as we lined up to reclaim our devices, I felt strangely reluctant. The wooden box that held my phone now seemed like Pandora’s box – did I really want to release all those notifications, alerts, and demands back into my life?

When I finally turned my phone on, it erupted in a symphony of pings and buzzes that made several people around me jump. 249 emails. 73 WhatsApp messages across various groups. 118 Twitter notifications. 42 missed calls.

I felt my shoulders tense, my breathing quicken. The calm I’d cultivated over six days began to evaporate almost immediately.

Dan appeared beside me, looking equally shell-shocked. “It’s a lot, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I said, still staring at my screen. “I need to set some boundaries when I get home.”

We both knew this was easier said than done. Digital wellness is the unicorn of modern life – everyone talks about it, but few have actually seen it in practice.

On the train home, I did something radical. I deleted my work email app from my phone. I could still access it through the browser if absolutely necessary, but removing that little red icon with its perpetually increasing number felt like removing a tiny thorn from my thumb.

I’d like to say that the retreat transformed me completely – that I’m now one of those people who keeps their phone in a drawer and only checks it twice a day. That’s not true. I still sleep with my phone by my bed. I still scroll when I’m bored or anxious. I still feel that familiar itch when I’ve been disconnected too long.

But something did shift. Now I catch myself sometimes, phone in hand, and ask: Do I actually need this right now? Is this serving me, or am I serving it?

And occasionally – not always, but sometimes – I put it down and look out the window instead. For someone who once checked their emails during a funeral (not my proudest moment), that’s something close to a miracle.

Though if I ever do another wellness retreat, I’m definitely smuggling in a backup phone. Even spiritual growth has its limits.

You know that feeling when you’ve spent years just sort of… existing with whatever free promotional water bottle happened to be closest to your hand? That was me until about six months ago, when I suddenly developed what my partner Rob calls “the world’s most pointless obsession.”

It started innocently enough. I was at the gym, desperately sucking the last drops from my ancient plastic bottle – you know, the kind that’s been through the dishwasher so many times it’s gone all cloudy and probably leaching microplastics straight into my bloodstream – when I noticed this woman on the treadmill next to me. She had this gorgeous matte black water bottle with some kind of fancy lid system. Every time she took a sip, it made this satisfying little click sound. No leaking. No desperate wrestling with the cap.

I became transfixed. Is this what adult life could be? Hydrating with… dignity?

“Nice water bottle,” I said, immediately regretting opening my mouth because who comments on a stranger’s water bottle at the gym?

But instead of looking at me like I had two heads, she lit up. “Thanks! It’s a Hydro Flask. Best £35 I’ve ever spent.”

Thirty-five quid for a water bottle? I nodded politely while mentally filing this under “ridiculous things people waste money on.” But that night, I found myself falling down a YouTube rabbit hole of water bottle review videos. Yes, that’s a thing. No, I had no idea either.

It turns out the world of reusable water bottles is an absolute minefield of options, tribal loyalties, and surprisingly passionate debates. Stainless steel or glass or plastic? Straw lid or sport cap or screw top? Insulated or single-wall? And don’t even get me started on the aesthetics – apparently some people (myself included, as I would soon discover) have very strong feelings about whether their hydration vessel should be powder-coated, gradient-colored, or emblazoned with motivational phrases.

The next day, I mentioned this to my colleague Sheila, expecting a laugh. Instead, she reached into her desk drawer and pulled out what looked like a clear plastic cylinder with measurement markings.

“This,” she said with the reverence of someone showing off a family heirloom, “is a game-changer.”

She explained it was something called a “time-marked water bottle” that showed how much you should drink by certain times of day. Apparently, she’d been chronically dehydrated before getting it, and now she’s a “hydration queen” who never gets afternoon headaches.

I nodded along while thinking, “Has everyone gone mad? It’s just a bloody water bottle.”

But three days later, I found myself in John Lewis, holding a stainless steel water bottle with a bamboo lid, trying to decide if £25 was a reasonable price to pay for something I could get for free at pretty much any conference or work event.

“It’s an investment in your health,” I told myself, sounding suspiciously like the wellness influencers I normally roll my eyes at. “And it’s better for the environment.”

Both true statements, but let’s be honest – I mainly wanted it because it looked cool and would match my desk setup. This is what happens when you hit your thirties – suddenly “matching desk accessories” becomes a legitimate consideration in your purchasing decisions.

I bought it. I loved it. For about nine days.

That’s when I discovered the fatal flaw: the bamboo lid wasn’t dishwasher safe, and handwashing it meant unscrewing this tiny little silicone gasket thing that would inevitably shoot across the kitchen, roll under the fridge, and collect enough dust bunnies to form a small pet before I managed to retrieve it.

Back to the drawing board.

My next attempt was one of those plastic bottles with a built-in fruit infuser. I’d convinced myself that the reason I wasn’t drinking enough water was because it was “boring,” and that if only I could have a constant supply of cucumber-mint infused water, I’d basically transform into one of those people who does yoga at dawn and has skin that glows from within.

The reality? I used the infuser exactly twice. The first time, I overstuffed it with strawberries that then expanded and got stuck, requiring me to perform what amounted to a tiny fruit cesarean with a butter knife. The second time, I forgot about the lime slices I’d put in there, left the bottle in my car during a heatwave, and created some kind of toxic citrus weapon that made my entire car smell like a cleaning product for weeks.

After that disaster, I decided to get serious about my search. I made a spreadsheet. (This is the point where Rob staged a minor intervention, but I explained that it wasn’t an obsession, it was research, which in retrospect might not have been the compelling argument I thought it was.)

My spreadsheet had columns for price, material, capacity, lid type, whether it was insulated, if it fit in a cup holder, and, crucially, ease of cleaning. I was not getting caught out by another dishwasher tragedy.

I should mention that during this period, I accumulated quite the collection. My kitchen cupboard started to look like some kind of water bottle graveyard – the bamboo-topped one I couldn’t clean properly, the fruit infuser of doom, a cheap plastic one from Sports Direct that made water taste faintly of chemicals, and an aluminum one from my company that leaked if you didn’t screw the lid on with the precision of a brain surgeon.

“Maybe you’ve got enough water bottles now?” Rob suggested one evening as I was comparing the merits of wide-mouth versus standard openings online.

“This isn’t about having ‘enough,’” I explained with the patience of someone talking to a small child. “It’s about finding the right one.”

The search intensified when I discovered a whole community on Reddit dedicated to hydration. Did you know there are people who post daily photos of their water bottles like they’re showing off their children? And others who collect them like some people collect trainers or vinyl records? I wasn’t alone in my quest – I was part of a movement!

A particularly low point came when I found myself in an hour-long YouTube comparison video of the acoustic properties of different water bottles. Apparently, the sound of ice clinking against stainless steel versus titanium is a consideration for some people. At this moment, I briefly questioned my life choices but then immediately ordered the one that had the most “satisfying” ice clink according to a man who called himself HydroHomieReviews.

I tried a collapsible silicone bottle that was practical for travel but made water taste vaguely like a balloon. I splurged on a “smart” water bottle that tracked my intake via an app and lit up when I wasn’t drinking enough – fine in theory, utterly mortifying in practice when it started flashing aggressively during a client meeting like I was carrying some kind of hydration emergency beacon.

The glass bottle with the silicone sleeve looked gorgeous on my desk but weighed approximately as much as a small child when filled. The extra-large “half gallon” motivational bottle with time markers made me feel like I was walking around with a small aquarium and led to so many bathroom trips that my manager actually asked if everything was okay with my kidneys.

Three months and seven water bottles in, I started to wonder if I’d ever find “the one.” Was I being too picky? Had I developed water bottle commitment issues? Was this whole search just a metaphor for my inability to commit in other areas of my life?

“It’s not that deep,” Rob said when I voiced these concerns. “It’s a container for water, not a soul mate.”

But here’s the thing – when you use something multiple times every day, it becomes a relationship of sorts. And just like any relationship, sometimes the one you end up with isn’t what you initially thought you wanted.

My perfect water bottle found me when I wasn’t even looking. I was in a small independent homeware shop buying a birthday present for my mum when I spotted it: a simple stainless steel bottle with a matte navy finish and a straightforward screw top with an integrated handle. No special features, no app connectivity, no inspirational quotes telling me to keep drinking. Just a solidly made, leak-proof vessel that kept cold drinks cold and wasn’t a pain to clean.

It cost £22, fit in my car cup holder AND my bike bottle cage, didn’t sweat condensation all over my documents, and didn’t make that annoying glugging sound when drinking. I’ve had it for two months now, and – touch wood – our relationship is still going strong.

The funny thing is, I realized something during this slightly ridiculous journey. This search was never really about finding the perfect water bottle. It was about the bizarre adult milestone of caring enough about something so mundane to actually put thought into it.

There’s something weirdly satisfying about optimizing these tiny aspects of daily life – finding the perfect pen that doesn’t smudge, the socks that don’t slide down inside your shoes, the water bottle that does exactly what you need it to do without fuss.

Is it a sign that I’ve fully embraced boring adulthood? Probably. Do I still occasionally browse new water bottle releases like they’re the latest iPhone? Also yes. But am I drinking more water than I used to? Absolutely.

So maybe my slightly neurotic quest wasn’t completely pointless after all. Though if you see me starting to make a spreadsheet about the perfect umbrella or ideal dish sponge, please stage another intervention. Some rabbit holes are best left unexplored.

So there I was, surrounded by approximately fourteen billion individually wrapped ingredients, a 27-step recipe card that somehow required both a saucepan AND a skillet (why??), and a ticking clock reminding me I had exactly 37 minutes until my next Zoom call. The kitchen counter looked like a produce section had exploded. My recycling bin was already overflowing with tiny plastic bottles and miniature paper bags. And I had just realized the “45-minute easy weeknight dinner” I’d signed up for required me to finely mince eight cloves of garlic.

This was supposed to make my life easier.

Let me back up a bit. Three months ago, I was drowning in a sea of takeaway containers and guilt. Working from home had somehow made my eating habits worse, not better, despite literally being five steps from my kitchen all day. The problem wasn’t access to cooking facilities—it was decision fatigue. By 6 PM, after making roughly 10,000 work decisions, the thought of planning a meal made my brain short-circuit. I’d find myself staring blankly into the fridge for what felt like hours before giving up and ordering yet another sad desk dinner.

Enter meal delivery kits, those cheerfully branded boxes that promised to solve all my culinary problems. “No shopping! No planning! No waste! Just delicious home-cooked meals in minutes!” the Instagram ads chirped at me. After the fifteenth targeted ad (featuring an impossibly attractive couple laughing while chopping vegetables, because apparently meal prep is HILARIOUS), I caved.

“It’s basically outsourcing the decision-making part of cooking,” I justified to my flatmate, Emma, as I signed up for a trial. “All the benefits of home cooking without the mental load. It’s practically self-care.”

Emma, who meal preps with terrifying efficiency every Sunday, just raised an eyebrow. “If you say so. Just don’t let them pile up in the hallway like your Amazon packages.”

I ignored this completely fair criticism of my online shopping habits and eagerly awaited my first delivery, mentally calculating all the time and stress I was about to save.

My first box arrived on a Tuesday. It was enormous—significantly larger than the contents warranted, but filled with enough ice packs to survive a nuclear winter. I lugged it up three flights of stairs (the lift in my building has been “temporarily out of order” since 2019), already slightly winded before the cooking had even begun.

The unboxing experience was initially delightful. Everything was so… cute. Tiny bottles of balsamic vinegar! Adorable packets of spices! Exactly two mushrooms in their very own paper bag! I felt like a giant raiding a miniature grocery store.

But then came the sorting and storing. Each meal needed to be kept separate, with refrigerated items separated from pantry items, and God help you if you mixed up which tiny unmarked spice packet went with which recipe. By the time I’d emptied the box, broken it down for recycling, and organized all the components in my decidedly not-Instagram-worthy fridge, 45 minutes had passed.

No matter. The actual cooking would be streamlined and efficient, unlike my usual chaotic approach. I selected the meal that looked simplest—a “Quick & Easy Weeknight Pasta” that promised to be ready in 30 minutes.

Two hours later, I was eating slightly overcooked pasta with a sauce that could only be described as “aggressively mediocre.” My kitchen looked like a crime scene, I’d used every utensil I owned, and I’d had to wash my cutting board three separate times during the preparation process.

What had gone wrong? For starters, the recipe assumed I had the knife skills of a professional chef, the multitasking abilities of an air traffic controller, and a kitchen twice the size of my actual one. While I was carefully measuring out 1/16 teaspoon of some obscure spice blend, the garlic was burning, the pasta water was boiling over, and I still hadn’t managed to “finely julienne” the bell pepper.

“It gets easier,” I told myself. “There’s a learning curve.”

And to be fair, it did get marginally easier—but never actually easy. By week three, I’d developed a system and could usually complete a meal kit recipe within 15 minutes of the promised time. But the mental relief I’d been seeking remained stubbornly elusive.

Here’s what the ads don’t tell you about meal kits: they eliminate one type of mental load (deciding what to eat and shopping for it) but replace it with another (following complicated instructions under time pressure with zero room for improvisation). And don’t get me started on the packaging guilt. I’m pretty sure I single-handedly accelerated climate change with all the tiny plastic bags, bottles, and containers that came with each meal.

Then there were the weirdly specific ingredients that seemed designed solely to create waste. One recipe required exactly 1.5 tablespoons of coconut milk. The kit provided a tiny can containing about 3 tablespoons—leaving me with exactly 1.5 tablespoons of leftover coconut milk, an amount too small to use for anything else but large enough to make me feel guilty about throwing it away. It sat in my fridge for two weeks, silently judging me, before growing something fuzzy and finding its way to the bin.

By month two, I’d developed a love-hate relationship with my meal kit subscription. I loved not having to think about what to cook or shop for ingredients. I hated the pressure of knowing those ingredients were slowly wilting in my fridge, their imminent expiration dates a ticking clock of potential food waste. The meals had to be cooked in a specific order based on ingredient perishability, creating a rigid dinner schedule that didn’t account for the day I got stuck in an emergency meeting or the night I just really wanted to order a pizza.

“You know you can just… skip a week, right?” Emma pointed out after finding me panic-cooking at 11 PM because I’d remembered I had a fish dish that absolutely had to be made that day.

“Then what would I eat next week?” I asked, slightly hysterical, as if grocery stores had been outlawed and my meal kit was my only food source.

She gave me the look that roommates reserve for when they’re questioning all their life choices. “The… supermarket? Like you did for the entire rest of your life before this started?”

But that was precisely what I was trying to avoid. I’d become dependent on having my meals decided for me, and the thought of going back to the dreaded “what should I make for dinner?” question filled me with inexplicable dread.

The breaking point came during week ten. I’d had a particularly grueling day of back-to-back Zoom meetings, my eyes were burning from screen time, and all I wanted was something quick and comforting. What awaited me was a recipe card for “Deconstructed Wellington with Micro Greens and Hand-Whipped Shallot Reduction.”

I stared at the pile of ingredients, at the 32-step recipe card, at the note specifying that this gourmet masterpiece would take “just 65 short minutes!” to prepare… and I broke. I physically couldn’t do it. Not that day. Not when my brain was already mush and my patience was thinner than the “hand-rolled pastry” I was somehow supposed to create.

I ordered a takeaway, shoved all the Wellington ingredients into the fridge, and had a minor existential crisis at my kitchen table.

The next day, with the clarity that only comes from MSG and a good night’s sleep, I realized something: these meal kits weren’t reducing my stress. They were just replacing one kind of stress (decision-making) with another (performance anxiety). Instead of the simple question “what do I want to eat?”, I was now dealing with “can I follow these precise instructions to create an Instagram-worthy result or am I a culinary failure?”

It was cooking as performance rather than nourishment or pleasure. And the audience was… who, exactly? The meal kit company? My social media followers? Some imaginary cooking show judge living in my head?

The irony wasn’t lost on me. I’d signed up for these kits to make my life easier, to remove decisions and reduce waste. Instead, I was spending more time cooking, creating more waste with all the packaging, and feeling more stressed about mealtimes than ever before.

I canceled my subscription that afternoon.

For a week, I went back to takeaway meals, but something had shifted. The meal kits had failed me, but they’d also reminded me that I actually do enjoy cooking when it’s on my own terms. I just needed a middle ground between “decide every aspect of every meal from scratch” and “follow this 40-step recipe for a Tuesday night dinner.”

My solution turned out to be embarrassingly simple: I made a list of ten easy meals I enjoy cooking and eating. Meals with flexible ingredients that could be swapped based on what’s available or what needs using up. I do one proper shop a week, and I decide each morning which of those meals I’ll make that night, based on time available and energy levels.

Some nights it’s just pasta with butter and cheese. Other nights I might tackle something more complex if I feel like it. The key difference is that it’s my choice, not a obligation set by a recipe card that seems to be judging me from the counter.

Look, I’m not saying meal kits are the devil. For some people, they’re probably brilliant. If you love following precise instructions, have ample counter space, and enjoy the treasure hunt aspect of finding 17 different components for a single meal, go for it. They might be exactly what you need.

But for me—someone who was looking to reduce mental load rather than redirect it—they created more stress than they solved. I wanted convenience but found constraint. I wanted simplicity but got complexity packaged as simplicity, which is somehow even worse.

The greatest irony? I actually cook more now than I did during my meal kit phase. Because when cooking feels like a choice rather than an assignment, it transforms from obligation back into something that can actually be enjoyable. Even if sometimes that “cooking” is just scrambled eggs on toast.

And I haven’t finely minced a single clove of garlic since.

I’ve always had this complicated relationship with the mirror. Some days, I gaze at my reflection and think, “Yeah, not bad!” Other days—which, let’s be honest, happen more frequently—I stand there cataloging every perceived flaw like I’m taking inventory at a shop of insecurities.

For as long as I can remember, my stomach has been the main character in this little drama. Too round, too soft, too… present. It’s been the target of my harshest criticism since secondary school when a boy—let’s call him Daniel because that was actually his name and he was truly a little shit—poked me in the belly during PE and made a “boing” sound. I was 14. Nearly two decades later, and somehow Daniel’s finger is still metaphorically poking me every time I try on clothes.

I’ve been on the body positivity journey, really I have. I’ve read the books, followed the Instagram accounts, nodded along to podcasts where women much braver than me declare that they’ve made peace with their bodies. I’ve tried affirmations in the mirror (felt like a right plonker talking to myself about how “worthy” my thighs are). I’ve attempted to “thank” my body for all it does rather than criticize how it looks (lasted approximately three days before I was back to scowling at my reflection).

But something happened last month that forced me to confront this whole mess. My cousin announced she was getting married, and the dress code was “cocktail attire.” Those two words sent me into an immediate panic spiral. Cocktail attire meant form-fitting. It meant no hiding under my collection of strategically oversized jumpers. It meant—and this was the true horror—shopping.

“It’s just a dress,” my best friend Lisa said when I called her hyperventilating. “You’ll find something nice, wear it for six hours, and then go back to your comfy clothes. What’s the big deal?”

The big deal, which Lisa with her effortlessly slim figure couldn’t possibly understand, was that finding a dress that didn’t make me feel like a sentient potato sack was about as likely as me winning the lottery without buying a ticket.

Nevertheless, I spent a Saturday traipsing through shops, a special kind of self-inflicted torture that involved fluorescent lighting, unflattering mirrors, and the soul-crushing experience of trying to squeeze into dresses clearly designed for people whose internal organs take up less space than mine.

After the fifth shop and approximately the fifteenth dress that either wouldn’t zip up or did zip up but made me look like I was smuggling a beach ball under the fabric, I sat down on a bench in the shopping center and did something I hadn’t done since receiving a parking ticket on my birthday three years ago—I cried in public.

Not pretty crying either. The proper ugly sobbing that makes strangers deliberately avoid eye contact while simultaneously trying to determine if you’re a potential threat to society.

It was at this precise moment of public humiliation that I remembered something a colleague had mentioned casually at work during a conversation about swimwear shopping (another circle of hell): shapewear.

Now, I’d always had mixed feelings about shapewear. On the one hand, it seemed like admitting defeat in the body acceptance battle—like saying, “Fine, I give up trying to love my actual body, just give me the modern-day corset already.” On the other hand… well, at that particular moment of desperation, there wasn’t really another hand. Just the desperate hope that perhaps lycra and nylon could accomplish what years of attempting self-love had not.

I wiped my tears, regained a modicum of dignity, and headed to the department store that I knew had an entire section dedicated to what they euphemistically called “solution wear.” As if my body was a problem that needed solving. (Which, in my darker moments, is exactly how I felt about it.)

The shapewear section was like entering a strange land where everything was beige or black and promised impossible things. “Tummy Tamer!” “Miracle Slimmer!” “Instant Transformation!” The packaging featured women pinching large amounts of invisible excess skin, their “before” outlines suggesting they’d somehow lost three stone by putting on what looked like industrial-strength knickers.

I approached tentatively, feeling like I was betraying some feminist principle just by being there. A saleswoman materialized beside me with the stealth of a ninja.

“First time?” she asked, with the knowing smile of someone who’d seen many women like me—women caught in the crossfire between wanting to love themselves as they are and desperately wanting to look different.

I nodded, embarrassed but also too tired to pretend.

“Don’t worry, love, you’re in good company,” she said, gesturing vaguely around the store where other women were furtively examining various contraptions designed to squeeze, smooth, and reshape. “What’s the occasion?”

“Wedding,” I muttered. “Need a dress that doesn’t make me look like I’m six months gone.”

She didn’t bat an eyelid, just nodded and started pulling various items from the racks with the efficiency of someone who’d done this a thousand times before.

I ended up in a changing room with what seemed like half the stock—bodysuits, high-waisted briefs, slip dresses with built-in compression, and one item that looked alarmingly like something you’d use to restrain a particularly dangerous criminal.

The next thirty minutes were a blur of struggling, sweating, and occasionally getting stuck in positions that would challenge a yoga instructor. At one point, I was trapped with one arm through a leg hole, breathing heavily and wondering if I’d have to call for help.

But then—oh then—I tried on a high-waisted thing that extended from just under my bra to mid-thigh. Getting into it was like trying to stuff a duvet into a pillowcase, but once I’d managed it and stood upright, adjusting everything into place… I looked in the mirror and barely recognized myself.

Not because I suddenly had the figure of a supermodel—I didn’t. I still had curves and bumps and all the things that make a human body interesting. But everything just looked… smoother. More contained. Like an edited version of myself.

I bought three different pieces, spending more money than I’d care to admit on what essentially amounted to very tight underwear. But walking out of that store, I felt a strange mix of emotions: relief, excitement, and also a niggling sense of shame. Like I’d cheated somehow on the exam of self-acceptance.

The next week, armed with my new “secret weapons,” I went dress shopping again. And it was… different. Dresses that had previously clung to every lump and bump now skimmed over my compressed silhouette. I could focus on the color, the neckline, the length, rather than just desperately hunting for anything that wouldn’t emphasize my stomach.

I found a dress—a proper, grown-up, actually quite lovely dress that made me feel like someone who belonged at a cocktail event rather than someone who’d wandered in from a pajama party. When I tried it on in the shop, with my industrial-strength knickers holding everything in place, I actually gasped. Not because I looked “thin” (I didn’t), but because I looked like… me. Just a slightly more polished version of me.

I bought the dress and went home feeling triumphant. But as the initial rush faded, I found myself sitting on my bed, staring at the shapewear and the new dress laid out side by side, and feeling deeply conflicted.

Had I actually made any progress? Or had I just found a more sophisticated way to hide from myself?

The wedding was still two weeks away, and during that time, I wore my new shapewear around the house, testing how it felt to live in it for more than the few minutes I’d tried it on in the store. The answer was: complicated.

On the one hand, I liked how I looked in my clothes. Liked catching glimpses of myself and not immediately focusing on my stomach. Liked the way my clothes fit, the way fabric draped more smoothly.

On the other hand, the physical sensation was, at times, like being slowly compressed by a very determined python. By the end of the day, the indent where the waistband had been cutting into me looked like I’d been sliced in half by an overzealous magician. And going to the loo was an Olympic event requiring planning, strategy, and core strength I didn’t know I possessed.

But the most complicated part wasn’t the physical discomfort—it was the mental gymnastics. Because while wearing the shapewear, I felt more confident. And that confidence made me more likely to put myself forward, to join conversations, to dance, to laugh without that reflexive arm-across-the-stomach defense mechanism I’d perfected over the years.

Was that a bad thing? If an elastic garment gave me the confidence to live more fully, wasn’t that actually a form of progress? Or was I just reinforcing the idea that my natural body wasn’t good enough to be seen?

The night before the wedding, I found myself standing in front of the mirror in just my underwear, no shapewear, no carefully chosen outfits to distract from what I’d always considered my flaws. I looked at myself—really looked—at the softness around my middle, the fullness of my thighs, the roundness of my arms.

And for perhaps the first time, I didn’t immediately start cataloging all the things I wanted to change. Instead, I just looked. This body had carried me through 32 years of life. It had danced and swum and hiked and hugged and made love and sometimes eaten too much cake and sometimes run too many miles and always, always kept going.

The next day, I put on the shapewear, then the dress, did my makeup and hair, and went to the wedding. I felt good—really good. I danced without thinking about my stomach. I let people take photos of me without angling myself to minimize certain parts. I ate cake without mentally calculating how many sit-ups it would take to burn it off.

And here’s the strange thing—the contradictory, messy truth of it all: the shapewear helped me do that. This thing that I’d bought specifically because I wasn’t at peace with my body somehow helped me make a kind of peace with it.

Not because it changed my body, but because it changed the way I felt in it. It gave me a break from the constant self-consciousness that had become so normal I hardly recognized it as something separate from myself.

Is it a perfect solution? God, no. It’s a band-aid on a deeper wound that needs proper healing. Real body acceptance doesn’t come packaged in beige lycra with “Tummy Control” written on the label.

But I’m starting to think that maybe the journey isn’t as straightforward as I’d thought. Maybe making peace with my body isn’t a linear path from hatred to acceptance, but a winding road with detours and shortcuts and the occasional bizarre rest stop where you find yourself sweating in a department store changing room, trying to untwist what is essentially an adult-sized baby grow.

For now, I’ve made an uneasy truce with my shapewear. I don’t wear it every day—most days, actually, I go without. But knowing it’s there, an option for when I need that extra boost of confidence, has somehow made me more accepting of my body even when I’m not wearing it.

It’s a contradiction, I know. Making peace with my body by buying something specifically designed to change its appearance. But maybe that’s okay. Maybe all of us are just doing the best we can with the bodies we have and the world we live in, finding our own complicated paths toward self-acceptance.

And if my path happens to involve extremely tight underwear… well, at least it’s making me stronger. Have you ever tried to use the loo while wearing a bodysuit? Trust me, it builds character.

I should probably start this with a confession. I’m the proud owner of what my girlfriend has sarcastically dubbed “the Museum of Fitness Optimism” – an ever-growing collection of exercise equipment that enters my home with fanfare and eventually blends into the background like oddly shaped furniture.

Last week, she nearly tripped over the resistance bands I’d left curled up like synthetic snakes on the living room floor. “For God’s sake, Ben! Another casualty for your fitness graveyard?” she muttered, kicking them aside.

She wasn’t wrong. The bands had joined the ranks of abandoned exercise gear scattered throughout our two-bedroom flat – victims of my enthusiastic but ultimately short-lived fitness commitments.

I’ve been thinking about this peculiar habit of mine – this cycle of fitness enthusiasm followed by equipment abandonment. By my rough calculation, I’ve spent somewhere north of £1,200 on various contraptions and gadgets over the past five years. That’s a lot of money for what essentially amounts to expensive coat hangers and dust collectors.

The treadmill was my first major investment. I remember the day it arrived – a hulking beast that the delivery men struggled to maneuver up the narrow staircase to our flat. “Where you putting this, mate?” one asked, sweat beading on his forehead.

“Spare bedroom,” I replied confidently. “Converting it to a home gym.”

The delivery guy exchanged knowing glances with his colleague. I later realized this was probably the look of men who regularly deliver exercise equipment to optimistic buyers, silently betting on how long before it would become furniture.

For the first two weeks, I was religious about it. Every morning, 6:30 AM, I’d drag myself out of bed, pull on my running shorts, and pound away for thirty minutes while watching the news. By week three, I was hitting the snooze button. By week four, the treadmill had become an expensive clothes rack, draped with shirts and jeans I was too lazy to put away properly.

Now it sits in the corner of our spare room, occasionally used when I’m feeling particularly guilty but mostly serving as an oversized paperweight for tax documents and old magazines I keep meaning to recycle.

The exercise bike came next – a more “practical” option, I told myself. It was smaller, less noisy (the neighbors below had complained about the treadmill’s thundering), and I could watch Netflix while using it. Perfect solution!

Except the seat was uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable. Like sitting-on-a-brick uncomfortable. I bought a gel seat cover. That helped, but then I discovered that cycling while watching TV isn’t as easy as it looks. Either I was pedaling too hard to concentrate on the show, or I was so engrossed in the show that I realized I’d stopped pedaling altogether.

The bike lasted longer than the treadmill – about six weeks of regular use. Now it’s positioned near the window, where I occasionally drape damp towels over it to dry. My girlfriend has placed a small potted fern on its console, which I think is her passive-aggressive way of officially converting it to furniture.

Oh, and then there were the kettlebells. Heavy, Soviet-looking things that promised to transform my body with swings and lifts and other movements that looked simple on YouTube but somehow became complicated physics equations when I attempted them. I bought a set of three – 8kg, 12kg, and 16kg.

The 8kg gets used sometimes. The 12kg serves as a doorstop for the bathroom when the window’s open and creating a draft. The 16kg? I’m not entirely sure I’ve ever lifted it beyond getting it into the house. It lives under the coffee table now, where I occasionally stub my toe on it and curse past-Ben’s optimism.

What’s strange is that I’m not naturally a spendthrift person. In most areas of my life, I’m fairly careful with money. I research purchases, compare prices, and generally avoid impulse buys. But something happens to my brain when I read fitness articles or watch transformation videos. There’s a temporary rewiring where I genuinely believe that this time will be different – that this particular piece of equipment will be the one that transforms me from somewhat-soft office worker to the cover model of Men’s Health.

I mentioned this to my friend Jake while we were having pints last weekend. He laughed so hard he nearly spat his beer out. “Mate, you’ve got what my dad calls ‘the catalogue dream,’” he said, wiping his mouth. “You’re not buying fitness equipment; you’re buying the fantasy of a different life.”

That hit uncomfortably close to home. Because he’s right – when I order a new piece of equipment, what I’m really ordering is the imagined future version of myself who uses it consistently. I’m not purchasing an ab-roller; I’m purchasing six-pack abs. I’m not buying dumbbells; I’m buying bigger arms. It’s magical thinking disguised as a practical purchase.

The ab-roller, by the way, is currently serving as a toy for my girlfriend’s cat, who enjoys pushing it across the hardwood floors at 3 AM.

The yoga mat has probably fared the best of all my fitness purchases. It’s been used somewhat regularly, though more often for impromptu naps than actual yoga. There’s something comforting about lying on a squishy mat in the middle of the living room, supposedly about to exercise, but instead staring at the ceiling and contemplating life’s great mysteries – like why I keep buying exercise equipment I don’t use.

My most recent acquisition – just three months ago – was a pull-up bar that fits in the doorframe. Installation required no tools and took literally minutes. It promised to be the most efficient way to build upper body strength with minimal time investment. Perfect for someone like me with a demanding job and limited free time!

I used it exactly seven times before the inevitable happened. Now it hangs there in the doorway between the hallway and kitchen, a sort of fitness memorial that we duck under multiple times daily. Occasionally, if I’m feeling particularly sprightly after my morning coffee, I’ll do a single pull-up on my way to get breakfast. One. And then I’ll feel simultaneously proud of myself for using it and pathetic that a single pull-up now constitutes a workout.

My girlfriend has suggested – multiple times – that we could reclaim substantial living space by getting rid of some of this equipment. Logically, I know she’s right. But there’s an emotional hurdle to clearing out the fitness graveyard: getting rid of the equipment feels like admitting defeat. Like I’m not just abandoning the equipment, but abandoning the better, fitter version of myself I wanted to become.

Plus, there’s the secondary guilt of money wasted. Getting rid of a £300 treadmill that I used for a total of maybe six hours feels like setting fire to £50 notes. At least while it’s sitting there, taking up space, there’s the theoretical possibility I might use it again.

But the truth, which I’m finally beginning to accept, is that it’s not about the equipment at all. My friend Jake was right about the catalogue dream, but it goes deeper than that. Each purchase is a way of outsourcing motivation – as if the mere presence of a treadmill will somehow generate the discipline I need to use it regularly.

I’ve started to realize that the people I know who exercise consistently rarely have elaborate home gym setups. They’ve got maybe one or two basic items, or they just use their body weight, or they go for runs outside. The equipment isn’t creating the habit; the habit exists independently of the equipment.

This revelation hit me last Tuesday when I was stepping around my adjustable dumbbells (currently serving as extremely expensive paperweights next to the sofa) to reach the remote control. I’ve been approaching this all backward. I’ve been trying to buy my way into a fitness routine instead of building the routine first and then supporting it with equipment as needed.

So I’ve made a new rule for myself: no new fitness purchases for one year. And if, after three consecutive months of consistent bodyweight exercises, I still feel I need equipment, I have to use what I already own before buying anything new.

I’ve also designated Sunday afternoons as “actually use the stuff you already have” time – thirty minutes of intentionally using one piece of abandoned equipment. Last Sunday, I dusted off the resistance bands. My arms were sore on Monday, a subtle reminder from my body that the equipment works perfectly fine; it’s the user that’s been malfunctioning.

My girlfriend is skeptical about this new plan, and fair enough – she’s witnessed the cycle too many times. “Just sell some of it,” she suggested again this morning, tripping over the foam roller that has somehow migrated to the bathroom doorway.

“I will,” I promised. “If I don’t use it in the next month, it goes.”

She raised an eyebrow so high it nearly disappeared into her hairline.

“I’m serious this time,” I insisted.

“You said that about the ab wheel,” she reminded me, nudging it with her toe where it sat next to the cat’s food bowl.

She has a point. My track record isn’t great. But there’s something different this time – a willingness to confront the uncomfortable truth that no purchase will ever be a substitute for consistent effort. My collection of abandoned fitness equipment isn’t just gathering dust; it’s teaching me something important about how lasting change actually happens.

And if nothing else, it’s given me a very expensive lesson in human psychology and the economics of optimism. Next time I feel the urge to buy equipment, I’ll just walk around my flat and count the items I already own that promised to change my life.

Though I did see this really interesting weighted jump rope online yesterday that’s supposed to be amazing for cardiovascular health and shoulder definition…

No. No, Ben. We’re not doing this again.

At least not until I’ve worn out something I already own.

I’ve always found it a bit ironic, you know, the way I obsessively check how many likes my meditation selfie gets. There I am, cross-legged on my yoga mat, eyes peacefully closed, caption reading “Finding my center #innerpeace #mindfulness” – and then I spend the next two hours refreshing the post to track its performance.

God, that’s embarrassing to admit.

But let’s be honest here – I’m not alone in this weird contradiction, am I? We’re all out there preaching about disconnecting while simultaneously tracking our follower counts like they’re vital signs.

I remember the exact moment this paradox really hit me. It was about three years ago, during this 10-day silent meditation retreat I’d signed up for. I’d been banging on to everyone about needing to “reset” and “reconnect with myself” for months beforehand. My Instagram stories were full of posts about digital detox and the value of silence. I even bought a special journal with “Journey Within” embossed on the cover (£28.99 from that fancy stationery shop – ridiculous, I know).

Day one at the retreat, I handed over my phone like I was donating a kidney. The staff member – this serene-looking woman with impossibly clear skin – smiled knowingly as I asked, “Just to confirm, there’s absolutely no way to check messages, right?” like some kind of digital junkie negotiating my fix.

“That’s the point,” she said, sliding my phone into a labeled envelope.

The first three days were actual hell. I’d find myself reaching for my phantom phone about 400 times an hour. During meditation sessions, instead of focusing on my breath like we were instructed, I kept composing the post I’d write when I got my phone back: “10 days of silence changed me forever. Here’s how…” I was literally planning the engagement strategy for my spiritual experience while still in the middle of it.

On day four, during an afternoon meditation, I had what our guide might have called a breakthrough but what I’d call a proper moment of mortifying self-awareness. There I was, supposedly doing the inner work, but actually mentally calculating how many followers I might gain from this spiritual journey if I played it right.

I started laughing – which, by the way, is frowned upon in silent meditation halls. The guide shot me this look that somehow conveyed both compassion and “shut up” simultaneously. But I couldn’t help it. The absurdity was too much. I was seeking validation for… not seeking validation. Talk about missing the bloody point.

Tom (my therapist – yes, I have one, and yes, he’s worth every overpriced penny) says this contradiction is pretty much the defining condition of our generation. We’re desperately seeking authentic experiences while simultaneously packaging them for external consumption. We want to be present, but we also want everyone to know just how present we’re being.

“It’s like you’re performing mindfulness rather than practicing it,” he told me during our session after I got back from the retreat. I remember feeling personally attacked by this observation – which, of course, meant he was spot on.

This isn’t just a me problem, though. Look at any wellness influencer’s feed. There they are, journaling about gratitude while perfectly positioned near a window with ideal natural lighting. Or meditating on a cliff at sunset – who brought the photographer along for that spiritual experience, I wonder?

I’ve got this mate, Sarah, who’s recently gotten into what she calls her “spiritual fitness journey.” Last month she invited me to this sound bath healing session that cost £45 for the privilege of lying on the floor of a community center while someone banged gongs around us. Before we even got through the door, she was setting up her phone against her water bottle to film her arrival for her Instagram followers.

“Don’t you think it’s a bit… contradictory?” I asked her. “Filming your spiritual experience for social media validation?”

She looked at me like I’d just suggested we kick a puppy. “It’s not about validation,” she explained, adjusting the angle of her phone. “I’m just sharing my journey to inspire others.”

Right.

To be fair, though, who am I to judge? I’m just as bad. I’ve got a meditation app that gives me little achievement badges for consistency. I literally get a dopamine hit from an animated shooting star because I sat still and breathed for ten minutes. And God help me, I care about those digital stars. I once meditated at 11:58 pm, nearly falling asleep sitting up, just to maintain my “21-day streak.” Nothing says inner peace quite like frantically squeezing in mindfulness before a midnight deadline.

The thing is, I actually do feel better when I meditate or journal or go for walks without my phone. These practices genuinely help. But then I go and corrupt them by turning them into content, or achievements, or ways to impress people at dinner parties. “Oh, you’re stressed? I meditate for 30 minutes every morning, it’s literally changed my life.” (Conveniently leaving out the fact that I spend 20 of those 30 minutes making mental shopping lists and thinking about what to caption my next post.)

My most ridiculous moment – and I can’t believe I’m admitting this – was probably when I found myself redoing my “casual” mindful walking video three times because the lighting wasn’t flattering in the first two attempts. There I was, supposedly engaging in a practice all about being present and accepting what is, while rejecting reality because my double chin was too visible from that angle. The irony was completely lost on me at the time.

I’ve been wondering lately why we do this to ourselves. Why can’t the private experience be enough? Why do I feel this compulsion to broadcast my personal growth like it’s a product I’m selling?

Part of it, I think, is that we’ve been trained to document everything. Life doesn’t quite feel real unless it’s been captured, filtered, and shared. The external validation has become proof that our experiences matter.

And there’s something else, something a bit deeper and more uncomfortable. For me at least, there’s this fear that if I do all this inner work and nobody knows about it, it somehow counts less. Like that old philosophical question about the tree falling in the forest – if I become more mindful but don’t get any recognition for it, have I really changed at all?

Tom says this is because we’ve confused self-improvement with self-promotion. We want the benefits of spiritual growth, but we also want the social capital that comes from being seen as someone on a spiritual journey.

About six months after my meditation retreat fiasco, I decided to try a different approach. I deleted my social media apps for a month. Not permanently – I’m not a monster – just a temporary experiment. I didn’t post about doing it beforehand (the ultimate sacrifice). I told approximately three people, and even then I was annoying about it. “Just so you know, if you need me, you’ll have to actually call or text because I’m taking a break from social…” like I was embarking on some grand pilgrimage.

The first week was predictably awful. I kept having these thoughts or experiences and automatically thinking, “This would make a great post” – then feeling weirdly bereft when I remembered I couldn’t share it. It was like all these little moments suddenly had nowhere to go, no purpose.

But then something shifted. By week three, I started having experiences without mentally narrating them for an invisible audience. I’d see a beautiful sunset and just… look at it. Not frame it for a photo. Not think about how to describe it. Just experience it directly, without the filter of “how will I package this moment later?”

It was properly disorienting at first, and then quietly revolutionary.

Don’t get me wrong – I went back to social media after the month ended. I’m not claiming some profound permanent transformation. The first thing I did was post about my “social media detox insights” (I know, I know). But something had changed. I became more aware of that voice that’s always performing, always seeking validation.

These days, I’m trying to find a middle path. I still meditate, but I’ve stopped posting about it. I still journal, but I don’t share aesthetically pleasing flat-lays of my journaling setup. It’s not perfect – just last week I caught myself considering downloading my meditation app statistics to share as part of some “wellness Wednesday” nonsense.

But I’m working on keeping some experiences just for me. Not because I’m above seeking validation (clearly I’m not), but because I’ve started to recognize how the constant performance changes the experience itself.

Maybe true inner peace isn’t found through perfectly filtered yoga poses or inspirational captions. Maybe it’s in those small, private moments that nobody else ever sees or validates. The quiet achievements that don’t come with likes or followers. The growth that happens when no one’s watching.

Or maybe I’m still missing the point entirely. Maybe someday I’ll reach such profound enlightenment that I won’t feel compelled to write articles about my spiritual journey for strangers to read.

But I’m definitely not there yet. So… did you like this piece? Please let me know in the comments below, and don’t forget to subscribe for more content like this! (Just kidding. Sort of.)