Your Brain Is a Dead Battery and the Charger Is Missing
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.
45%
Battery Drained by 10 AM
That whole idea is a beautiful, seductive lie. A few years ago, I realized my willpower isn’t a













- 2 min
-
56 years
- 255 words
Tagged Finance