The cold air hits my face and for a second it’s a relief. Then the light from inside the refrigerator illuminates the chaos. A dozen bottles of sauces, half a lime, something in foil I don’t have the courage to investigate. My brain, which just hours ago was deftly navigating project deadlines and mediating a passive-aggressive email chain between two departments, is now a blank slate. Utterly, terrifyingly blank. The simple question-What’s for dinner?-has become an existential dead end. It feels less like a choice and more like a final exam for which I haven’t studied.

I used to believe in the mythology of willpower. I really did. I bought the books, listened to the podcasts. I pictured it as a muscle, something you could train. If you felt weak, you just needed to do more reps. Push through the discomfort. I’d tell myself that my inability to make a decision at 8 PM was a moral failing, a weakness of character. I just needed to be tougher, more disciplined. I’d stand there, shaming myself over a jar of pickles, convinced that true high-performers were probably, at that very moment, making strategic, multi-year life decisions while cooking a nutritionally-balanced meal from scratch.

That whole idea is a beautiful, seductive lie. A few years ago, I realized my willpower isn’t a

The left side of my mouth pulls up first. It’s the veteran, the one that’s done this thousands of times. The right side is the rookie, always a fraction of a second behind, making the whole expression feel rehearsed even when I’m trying my best. The tray is perfectly balanced-three glasses of water, no lemon, just how they asked 13 minutes ago. Table 7. The Grim Reapers. They haven’t smiled once. They don’t look at me, they look through me, and their quiet conversation ceases the second I approach, as if my presence is an atmospheric contamination.

This is the moment of calculation. It’s a silent, high-stakes auction for my own dignity. How much enthusiasm is required? Too much, and I’m a desperate, annoying cartoon. Too little, and I’m the “moody server” who deserves a punitive 10%. Or less. The bill is $83. The difference between a good performance and a mediocre one is about $13. That’s an hour of electricity. That’s the gas I need to get home. So, the left side of my mouth pulls, the right side follows, and a voice I barely recognize as my own chirps, “Everything tasting fabulous over here?”

The Unseen Cost of Curated Joy

There’s an ugly, necessary feeling to it. A few hours ago, I found a spider in my bathtub, a big one with legs that looked like charred threads. I killed it with a shoe. I didn’t want to, its existence

The cursor blinks. It’s the only thing moving in the quiet room, a tiny vertical line of light pulsing with a question I don’t want to answer. Foreign Tax ID Number. The field is optional, but leaving it blank feels like a lie of omission. My fingers hover over the keyboard, a familiar tension building in my shoulders. It feels like a video stuck buffering at 99 percent; the goal is right there, the new mortgage, the settled life in a new country, but a ghost from the old one is holding up the last frame.

I type the 11 digits. They come out effortlessly, a sequence burned into my brain from decades of use-for opening a bank account as a teenager, for buying a movie ticket, for signing up for a university entrance exam. With each number, the ghost gets a little more solid. This string of digits is the primary key to a life I supposedly left behind. It connects this quiet room in Montreal to a noisy apartment in São Paulo, this mortgage application to my first paycheck, this new future to a past I thought was neatly packed away.

A Profound Misunderstanding

People think of their CPF as a simple document, a social security number equivalent. A tool. I used to think that, too. This is a profound misunderstanding of its function.

It is not a tool you wield; it is a system that contains you.

The mouse clicks. Your finger, moving on its own, has done this 532 times in the last 2 days. The screen flashes green. Again. The number in the top right corner ticks up to $82,472. A meaningless, pixelated fortune built on a foundation of pure vapor. You lean back, and the chair squeaks in a way that sounds suspiciously like a laugh. You haven’t learned a thing. You feel it in your bones, a hollow space where a skill should be growing. It’s the same dull, irritating ache of a mistake you know you shouldn’t have made, like walking into the corner of the bed frame in the dark. A stupid, avoidable, unproductive pain.

I confess, I worship

The air conditioning hums a low, constant B-flat, a sound you stop hearing after about an hour. Underneath it, the real music: the hypnotic, chaotic clatter of chips. They sound different depending on the player. The nervous tourist makes a scratchy, uncertain pile. The veteran’s stack clicks with a sharp, dense finality. From my spot, I can see two tables, two dealers, two entirely different realities playing out on the green felt.

At the first table is Anya. Her hands are a study in fluid dynamics. Each card lands precisely, a whisper on the felt. She handles a complete shoe of blackjack in what feels like minutes, her motions so economical they’re almost invisible. She’s a machine of perfect procedure. A player hits a natural, a nice payout of $176. He nods, a flicker of a smile, and rakes his chips toward himself. The toke box, the small transparent container for dealer tips, remains empty. It has been for most of her shift.

Two tables over, Marco is holding court. He’s telling a rambling story about a mistaken identity at the DMV, his hands gesturing wildly. He just paid a winning bet incorrectly, giving the player an extra $6 by mistake, but the player is laughing so hard he doesn’t even notice. Or maybe he doesn’t care. As the player collects his chips, he slides a red one-a fiver-over the line for Marco. “For the story,” he says. Marco’s toke box