Pause

I’m getting up earlier lately to inject some more productivity into my mornings. There’s no upside to minimizing the time between waking up and starting my workday. In fact, I’ve found that the longer I have to caffeinate, walk the dogs, read and meditate, the better my day tends to trend. I approach what comes my way, good and bad, with more acceptance and positivity. Which isn’t to say I don’t get torqued when shit goes south; I just mean that I create less wreckage.

Today I had an interview scheduled for 9 a.m. for a feature I’m writing. My plan was to wake up, walk the dogs, meditate, work a little and then take a break to do the interview. This all hit the skids when my alarm went off. I pulled my phone from the nightstand and checked my email because it was something I could do from the warmth of my bed. Lo and behold, the publicist arranging my interview had sent me an email sometime after midnight, asking if I could move the 9 a.m. interview up to 7 a.m.

I know - what the actual fuck, right? Who does that?

My ego — that crippling sense of self and otherness — is always prepared for shit like this. A pageant of outrage began playing out in my mind. “How fucking inconsiderate?” “What makes him think I’m even up at 7 a.m., let alone available for a last-minute reschedule?” "This is the worst publicist on Earth. I’m never working with this guy again.” My ego was in a full-on feeding frenzy. But that’s not the reaction of someone who I aspire to be. I much prefer being laid-back and flexible, yet my mind raced with thoughts of offense and petty revenge. “Don’t you know who I think I am?” is the enduring chorus of the ego.

Regardless of the request and whether or not it was considerate, the fact is that I could have just ignored it. Or declined and suggested we pick another day. Nobody was putting a gun to my head — it was just a request. Thankfully, my intuition nudged the ego aside and led me to simply agreeing. It was the right thing to do. I was already up, my questions were prepared and I still had an hour to drink coffee and walk the dogs. Problem solved.

Then the thought occurred, “Wait - at least send out a snarky tweet. You’ll get some support from your UK freelancing colleagues.” And so I typed a shitty little tweet about receiving what I felt was an unreasonable request and suggesting that the unnamed offender was a bit of a dick. Though I didn’t use that word, it was clearly implied.

Before sending, however, I re-read the tweet and in that moment of pause, I saw the truth of the situation. What a petulant, whiny little act of self-pity. I was making myself out to be the victim in a situation in which I had total control. It was attention-seeking behavior, at best. I saw that I was making my first act of the day one where I threw a bucket of piss into the river of social media. I constantly complain about the negativity and bullshit of Twitter and yet, here I was, about to make myself a part of that very problem.

I discarded the tweet before sending.

Then I went about my morning. My coffee was ready (thank you, coffee maker timer), and the dogs and I had a nice little sunrise stroll. I checked email and received a nice note from a UK colleague with a PDF of a feature I wrote that was set for publication. When the time for the interview arrived, I felt fine. The guy I was interviewing hopped onto Zoom and apologized straight away. Something came up that was pretty heavy and he needed to reshuffle some obligations. He was very grateful that I was available so early and we both raised our coffee cups, smiled and jumped into the interview. Which went great.

It wouldn’t have been the end of the world if I’d sent that tweet. It was vague enough to protect everybody involved. Still, how nice that I didn’t. Who knows what kind of energy it might have inspired but it certainly would have been entirely negative. And who knows who might have taken something like that personally? Or who might be having a bad day already and seeing my bullshit might have compounded the misery. Instead, I started the day with a tidy little lesson. I like feeling good and when I do the right thing, that’s usually the experience that follows. One of my friends likes to say, “Never pass up an opportunity to keep your mouth shut.” Today was a reminder that the rule applies to a lot more than just speaking.