A mother wrote out her whole day in order, in a post she titled "Going through the motions."
Breakfast. Getting dressed. Chores. Back to school returns. Pick up the kids. Lunch. Then, one line, same size as the others: be a present parent. Then baths, dinner, bedtime, start again.
Look at where it sits. Between the returns and the baths. Same slot as everything else, one more thing to get done before the water runs.
She wrote it as an item, with no complaint attached, because by then it had become one.
You have a line like that. It might not say parent. Be here for dinner. Be present at the thing. Enjoy this. It rides in your head between two errands, and it's the only line with nothing underneath it. Nothing to pick up. Nothing to return. You can't cross it off, so it just rides along all day, and at bedtime you grade it by feel.
Most nights the feel says no.
The one thing:
Find the line on today's list that has no step under it.
Notice it's been on every list you've made.
Josh
P.S. I finished my 30-day Ash Journal run on July 30. In public, one page a day, no edits, all thirty.
Five minutes. One prompt. One line of ash. The first seven days are free: truevitalyou.com/journal
P.P.S. Know a guy who'd tell you he's fine? Forward him this one.