“Who you are is defined by the next decision you make, not the last one.”
Rachel Hollis
You can quote Rachel Hollis or Anna from Frozen II here (“do the next right thing”), but words come to you when you need them the most and I needed to hear this again today.
Glued into days where it’s impossible to make plans, hard to picture a future, and a struggle to find little things to look forward to, I feel like I am in a constant war against myself and old bad habits. Or new bad habits. Like the one where I read angsty fanfiction in bed instead of getting up to run — after nearly nine hours of sleep, mind you. Or where I eat half of a monster-sized pizza in one sitting two slices past being hungry. Or where I pick up my phone again and again, listlessly, waiting for . . . nothing.
So here’s what I could do today, my small next decisions. I meditated for longer than usual in the afternoon (my morning meditation also subbed out for fanfiction). I went on a five-plus mile run on a new road route to explore. I spent twenty minutes stretching afterward. It’s all calmed me down because before all this I felt a little bit like an unjustified mess on the inside as I plowed through the workday. Not to any alarming levels, but enough to tempt me into hold back tears dream about drinking half of a bottle of wine that I know would only make me feel worse.
So that’s what I thought to myself when I got myself dressed for that run: make the next right decision. For me, that was to move and to do a different route so it felt like something new. A break in the routine.
If I spent too long in a shame spiral of my not so great decisions, I won’t be able to move forward. And who I want to be is someone who moves forward.
With love,
Natalie