Consistency sans Friction
“Oito ou oitenta”
oito ou oitenta: “eight or eighty”
Before my expatriate days, I chalked the ease at which I could find consistency in my good habits up as a measly byproduct of a mundane lifestyle characterized by repetitive days and a lack of new experiences.
Two years later, I find myself grasping fruitlessly at something resembling a routine.
Amid a weekly onslaught of 10 PM dinners with friends, farewells to my nomadic peers, padél sessions, unexplored neighborhoods beckoning me around the next corner, shadowy jazz clubs, and countless micro-theaters, the best I can hope to achieve is logging 3 or 4 nonconsecutive days of proper sleep, exercise, meditations, nutrition, and writing sessions.
I used to be terrified of missing a day of any healthy habit streak—I had (falsely) built my identity on being consistent in the base facets of a healthy life and productive habits. Sacrificing those meant losing that identity.
The interesting life has a price though, and the only valid currency is spontaneity.
Lately, I’ve been learning that I can do both—pursue new experiences and maintain former, positive habits—but perhaps not in my consistency capacity of old. My vision is longer-tailed now.
The goal is to be net positive on the month, not on the day.
I have the odd day where my three meals are empanadas, a milanesa, and empanadas. It doesn’t mean I’ve given up on my nutrition principles.
If rest is more important than my morning reading, cold shower, and meditation routine, I sleep past dawn. Tomorrow, I can do it with renewed vigor.
I can skip the workout in favor of bidding farewell to a friend. My fitness is hardly going to bat an eye.
These may seem like no-brainers to some. To others, this measure of mercy in pursuit of perfection is alien. As if anything less than 100% means 0%.
This is no argument in favor of complacency. Nor do I encourage anyone to aim for less than their best any given day.
It’s a call for perfectionists, optimization-addicted automatons, and the all-in-or-all-out types to take a breath.
Failing occasionally is natural. Allowing that failure to perpetuate across weeks, months, and years is only when it becomes detrimental.
Many of us decide to throw in the towel on building good habits the minute we can’t keep it up day-over-day.
I hope to never be unlucky enough to lead a life so boring and frictionless that daily consistency becomes easy.
Give yourself some grace today, but hold yourself accountable tomorrow.
