The internet is a glowing trash heap of “10 Things That’ll Make You Feel Better” lists.

There’s How to Sleep Better; How to Walk More Steps; How to Eat Healthier During the Week So We Can Win a Pizza Next Saturday!!; How to Lift Your (Emotional) Weights (you go, gym bro, don’t be afraid to have feelings under that adorable bundle of hyper-evolved fibrous tissue).

Of course, every list harbours its own pickled subcategories: How to Eat More Protein; How to Cut Sugar; How to Become Your Own Mother, Therapist (especially for you, emotionally tyrannised gym bro), Seamstress, Logo Designer (?), Chef, Public Speaker, Personal Trainer (definitely not for you, gym bro), all inevitably due for completion and review by tomorrow.

It makes me wonder. We are not doing too well, love.

Why is everyone always trying to feel better? Why is everyone still not sleeping enough? Why is everyone trying to become a gym bro? Why are we all collectively stretching to “fix” ourselves when the problem is probably that we spend six hours a day (all between 2 a.m. and 8 a.m.) reading about fixing ourselves?

We all know what to do. Listen. We could teach a TED Talk on sleep hygiene, while also nurturing the admirable skill set of scrolling TikTok until 2 a.m., watching a raccoon wash grapes.

So today, I enthusiastically refuse to tell you “10 Things to Make You Feel Better” — because, babes, you are simply not doing them.

Today, I want to notify you of the “10 Things to Do If You Want to Feel Worse.” Let’s see how many of these bingo squares you’ve already checked.

Bring your phone to bed “just for the alarm :0

You swore you’d leave it outside your room.

“Tomorrow, I start a new life. My phone sleeps outside with the cat,” she wickedly whispered.

But then she unexpectedly snapped back.

She has no cat.

She has no alarm to wake her from her four-hour sleep.

Sure, she could buy an analogue clock. But ew. Levers? Batteries? Actual effort? What is this, 1998?

So the phone comes to bed. Little baby.

She lies there, heroic and strong-willed, fondly gazing at the ceiling. Five minutes pass. From this brief window of time, she concludes that she is an inefficient sleeper and a bad girl, nonetheless.

“I deserve a little scroll.”

Aggressive cut to: it’s 2:17 a.m., she has accidentally watched a one-hour-and-46-minute YouTube documentary narrating a conspiracy theory about avocados being spies from the Chinese government. She is now, very successfully, too strained to sleep and to believe in life after love.

Start your day with a hit of phone-induced 6000-second serotonin

Your eyes are not even open, and I can literally see your hand trying to reach for your phone like it’s an EpiPen. Agh! Oh my God, you are suffocating! You need to see what @SuzieAnn68 posted at 5:45 a.m. Maybe she got a new cat. Maybe she got engaged. Perhaps she got both?! You are just allergic to peace of mind. What can you do?

You scroll until you’re not technically late for work but definitely in that sprint through the house wearing both socks (but you are not sure), brushing half a tooth, forgetting your wallet in the pants you wore yesterday.

No breakfast, no money, no postcolonial justice. Faith in humanity is wholly dependent on SuzieAnn’s cat.

Whiskers, I love you.

Meal prep is a great theory. We are still working on the practice.

You promised yourself you’d do meal prep tonight while going back home on the bus. You even watched a 14-minute YouTube video titled “Healthy Lunches That’ll Change Your Life.” And today’s 14 minutes are like 1998’s six hours. You are such a focused babe!

It would take maybe 20 minutes to throw some pity-protein in a Tupperware. I can assure you, five minutes to put a ham and cheese sandwich together. You are a great cutter. I know you can do justice to that stunning bread bun.

But no.
You tease yourself, “I’ll do it in the morning.”

Which is outrageous, because the “morning” you’re referring to is already filled by your diligent scrolling of SuzieAnn’s cat. (Whiskers, we love you.)

Aggressive cut to: it’s 1:02 p.m., and you are now a famished princess. You grab the Tesco five-euro meal deal, with that soggy spinach wrap that’s 80% sadness (and 20% soggy spinach), the salt & vinegar crisps that crunch like premenstrual syndrome (vibe applied to all genders and cycle phases), and the sugary, fizzy, pinkish drink that mumbles through the bubbles, “blblbl… You blblblbl… did this to yourself – bl.”

And babes, you absolutely did.

Bl.

Repeat after me: “Just one pint!”

It’s Friday, 8:00 p.m. You put on grey jeans (already a bad sign) and go out with Jasper (???), a man whose name sounds like a discontinued Victorian toy in a Dickens novel (already a bad move). You promise yourself that it’s going to be a chill night (already a bad lie).

Aggressive cut to: it’s 8:01 p.m. You’re five pints in, someone bought shots “for the table,” and you have now confessed that your mother would give you the silent treatment to a stranger named Gary who works in IT and has opinions (?) about crypto.

The next morning, you wake up fully clothed, dry-mouthed, and soul-cracked.

You are weak. You are not 18. Your metabolism knows it. Your head bangs it. You deserve hate mail and death stares from Whiskers.

Eat healthy (until 9:47 p.m.)

The day starts like a scene ripped from a wellness Pinterest board: a smoothie with chia seeds and a dreadful consistency for breakfast, a salad that tastes like lawn trimmings for lunch, stinky salmon for dinner.

Aggressive cut to: 9:47 p.m. Full moon or no full moon, you possess the massive power to morph into a feral cupboard gremlin at will. I mean, little gremlin has been so good, little gremlin deserves a treat. Next thing you know, little gremlin has inhaled a pack of matcha-flavoured Mikado sticks (because, obviously, green = health), half a bag of popcorn, and an ice cream you didn’t even want, but it was there, and you are weak.

Morning-you: we cry into a chia-seed smoothie of dreadful consistency (maybe trying to improve it?). Night-you: we ride at dawn.

P.S.: The riding-at-dawn part may not apply to your local gym bro; they indeed live in an unescapable pitch-black chamber of ever-regenerating walls of unseasoned chicken and rice.

Cheap thrills

You’re not shopping, you’re “just browsing.” Then, just wait, one second, here it comes, here it is, you see it: 37% off. You catch a breath. A vegetable spiralizer. For 7.99. You catch another breath. Your pupils start spinning. You black out. Two days later, a package arrives. You will never use that vegetable spiralizer, but now you own it. You’re also broke. But hey, at least Jeff Bezos is not!!!

Gym membership (wreck)

You love the concept of being fit, of a protein shaker (bought on one of your hypnosis-induced shopping sprees), of matching sets (attentively purchased on Delululemon), of muscles that have names (freak).

However, it seems to me that you pay for your gym like it’s a charitable donation to the treadmills. Wow, you are so kind! You walk for 11 minutes on level 3 incline, stretch for 45 seconds, panic because someone looked in your general direction, and leave because “it was too crowded.”

I see you.
And I judge you.

P.S.: The charitable donation to the treadmills part may not apply to your local gym bro; they live in a pitch-black, inescapable chamber of ever-regenerating unseasoned chicken and rice walls, traction bars, and weight plates, forming a fully operational poultry-infused Narnia-inspired portal straight to their local gym.

One more episode?

It’s midnight, an almost reasonable, adult hour to sleep.

Then you see it, in the bottom right corner of your screen: “Next episode? It’s only 43 minutes ;) I love you, and I accept you unconditionally, and I will soothe your childhood wounds.”

You love them too and would never want a streaming platform to feel undesirable, so you hit play. One episode becomes two. Then three.

Then it’s suddenly 3:08 a.m., and you suspiciously appear to know maths: “If I fall asleep in the next four minutes… I can still get exactly three hours and 26 minutes…”

Wow, babes, no wonder you look like that.

Drinking water is for people who lose

Your body is generally 60% water (hopefully I got it right); yours isn’t. You walk around dehydrated like a decorative houseplant that hasn’t been misted since 2019.

On your desk sit an iced latte (daily personality), a Diet Coke (emergency personality), a forgotten tea that is now cold with floating milk (emotional support corpse), and a random kombucha (your healthy-wannabe persona).

Where is the water? Hello??? Your skin is literally peeling, but sure, have another espresso!

Yes-(wo)man

You suffer from people-pleasing. You say yes to plans, plants, favours, meetings, dinners, birthdays, drinks, work tasks, dog-sitting (?), because God forbid someone thinks you’re not nice.

Then you end up:
Burnt out,
Cocially bankrupt,
Fantasising about running away to a hut in the woods with no electricity.

You resent the plans you agreed to; you resent the people you love; you resent yourself the most.

How is your bingo card lookin’ tootin’?
If you checked at least three of these, bingo! You won! You might be your own worst enemy!

Will you change? Maybe.

Maybe tomorrow.

Maybe when the Messiah comes.