Apparently, I have been waking up incorrectly.
I didn't realize this until the internet informed me that successful people have already lived an entire day before I've located my phone charger.
They wake up at 5 a.m.
They drink lemon water.
They meditate.
They journal.
They stretch.
They read ten pages of something educational.
They make a high-protein breakfast.
They walk ten thousand steps.
They practice gratitude.
They complete a skincare routine involving several products that must apparently be applied in a very specific order.
And by 7:15, they're dressed in matching workout clothes, standing in a spotless kitchen and feeling deeply connected to their purpose.
Meanwhile, I've hit snooze twice and am trying to determine whether dry shampoo can reasonably solve what's happening with my hair.
And I couldn't help but wonder:
When did waking up become another thing we had to be good at?
The Morning Routine Industrial Complex
Somewhere along the way, mornings became less about waking up and more about proving we deserve the day ahead.
We can't just have coffee anymore.
We need a ritual.
We can't just go for a walk.
It needs to be morning movement.
Breakfast isn't breakfast. It's fueling.
Writing down our thoughts isn't writing. It's journaling.
And God forbid you look at your phone before you've spent twenty minutes connecting with yourself.
Apparently, seeing an email before you've written three things you're grateful for can destroy your nervous system until approximately Thursday.
I'm exaggerating.
Slightly.
But there is an entire industry built around convincing us that the first sixty minutes of our day determine whether we're disciplined, productive, healthy and possibly worthy of owning linen pants.
And I'm tired.
Which, ironically, would probably be improved by sleeping past 5 a.m.
I Don't Want to Optimize Everything
This might be the larger problem.
I don't want every part of my life to have a strategy.
I don't want to optimize my sleep.
Optimize my mornings.
Optimize my workouts.
Optimize my meals.
Optimize my productivity.
Optimize my relationship.
Optimize my weekends.
Optimize my vacation.
Optimize my relaxation.
At some point, optimizing relaxation feels like we've lost the plot.
There are parts of life that should be wonderfully inefficient.
Drinking coffee for forty minutes.
Taking too long to get ready.
Standing in the kitchen talking about absolutely nothing.
Going somewhere without listening to a podcast that promises to make us smarter by the time we arrive.
Sitting outside without tracking sunlight exposure.
Walking without counting the steps.
Sleeping without grading ourselves the next morning.
Maybe not every minute needs to produce a better version of us.
Maybe some minutes are allowed to simply pass.
When Did Rest Become Something We Had to Earn?
This is where I think the morning routine becomes something bigger.
Because underneath all the lemon water and gratitude journals is a message we've heard for years:
You could be doing more.
Wake up earlier.
Work harder.
Exercise more.
Read more.
Eat better.
Drink more water.
Spend less time on your phone.
Build a side hustle.
Have hobbies.
Maintain friendships.
Keep your house clean.
Have a good marriage.
Be present with your children.
Travel.
Save money.
Invest.
Get eight hours of sleep.
And somehow we're supposed to accomplish the eight hours of sleep while waking up at 5 a.m.
The math is becoming concerning.
No wonder we're exhausted.
We've turned existing into a performance review.
Maybe I Like Slow Mornings
Here's what I actually want from a morning.
I want coffee.
Good coffee.
I want ten minutes where nobody needs anything from me.
I want to stand in front of my closet for longer than necessary because I can't decide what to wear.
I want music playing somewhere in the house.
I want to open the blinds.
I want to occasionally make breakfast.
I want to occasionally not make breakfast.
I want to sit on the edge of the bed longer than I should.
I want mornings where we're running late and mornings where we have nowhere to be.
I want Saturday mornings that accidentally become afternoons.
I want hotel mornings where the curtains stay closed until room service arrives.
I want to wake up on vacation and have absolutely no idea what time it is.
None of this is particularly productive.
That's the point.
Discipline Isn't a Personality
There is something else we've started doing that bothers me.
We've turned discipline into morality.
The person who wakes up at five is somehow better than the person who wakes up at eight.
The person who works out before sunrise has more willpower.
The person with the perfectly organized refrigerator has their life together.
The person who meal preps on Sunday is responsible.
The person who sleeps in is lazy.
Except none of that is necessarily true.
Maybe the person sleeping until nine worked until midnight.
Maybe the person skipping the gym needed rest.
Maybe the person buying breakfast on the way to work spent Sunday afternoon playing with their children instead of portioning chicken into glass containers.
Maybe someone's life simply doesn't photograph particularly well.
A routine can make life easier.
It doesn't make someone better.
I Still Want to Take Care of Myself
I don't want chaos.
I don't want to wake up every morning in a panic, twelve minutes late with no clean clothes and an empty gas tank.
There is something comforting about routine.
Habits can make us healthier.
Structure can make life easier.
And there are mornings when getting up early, moving my body and starting the day quietly sounds genuinely wonderful.
I just don't want to turn those things into another standard I can fail.
Because the minute self-care becomes a list of obligations, I'm not entirely sure we're caring for ourselves anymore.
We're managing ourselves.
And I already have enough things to manage.
Some Mornings Can Just Be Mornings
Maybe the best morning routine isn't the one with the most steps.
Maybe it's the one that leaves us feeling like ourselves.
For one person, that's a 5 a.m. workout.
For someone else, it's twenty quiet minutes with coffee.
For someone else, it's waking up five minutes before the children and standing alone in the kitchen.
And sometimes it's hitting snooze.
Sometimes it's eating cereal.
Sometimes it's checking Instagram before we've expressed gratitude to the universe.
We'll survive.
Maybe a good life isn't built by squeezing personal development into every available corner of the day.
Maybe it has empty spaces.
Unproductive mornings.
Long dinners.
Lazy Sundays.
Books we read slowly.
Walks that accomplish nothing.
Conversations that go nowhere.
Hours we couldn't possibly explain on a productivity tracker.
Because we're already spending so much of our lives trying to become better employees, better partners, better parents, better friends, better bodies and better versions of ourselves.
Maybe we don't need to start working on ourselves the second we open our eyes.
Maybe sometimes we can just wake up.
Make the coffee.
Open the blinds.
Stand in the sunlight for a minute.
And be a person.
And I couldn't help but wonder:
If every moment of our lives is spent becoming better, when exactly do we get to enjoy who we've already become?
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