I was talking to a friend this week about her morning routine.
Before most of us are up, she’s already had a cold plunge, 20 minutes of red light, Pilates, vibration plate, and a matcha whisked to perfection. Very impressive!
I asked her how she was doing. She paused for a long second and said, “Honestly? Exhausted.”
And there it was. The whole thing, in one word.
So, I feel the need to say the thing that needs to be said…
With all the optimizing we’re doing, we have optimized ourselves right out of a life worth living.
Somewhere along the way, pleasure fell off the protocol.
Why aren’t long lunches that bleed into the afternoon on the list? Great sex? Curling up with a book until your tea goes cold? Sleeping in with no alarm and no guilt? Putzing around the house with nowhere to be? A kitchen dance party for an audience of nobody?
None of it counts anymore.
Instead, we’ve got matcha and Pilates and vibration plates, red light masks and peptides and alkaline water and cold plunges and a supplement routine that requires a spreadsheet – a thousand little protocols we run to feel like we’re doing life well.
And look, I’m not against any of it. I’ll happily stand on the vibration plate.
But somewhere in the pursuit of the optimized life, we decided that the things that actually make life delicious – the slow, the sensual, the pointless, the fun – don’t count as taking care of ourselves. As if joy were frivolous. As if pleasure had to earn its place by also being productive.
Here’s what I’ve come to believe: the woman who lingers over a two-hour lunch with her friends is not behind the woman who optimized her morning. She might be lightyears ahead. She remembered the part that everyone else is too busy to get to. The living part.
The French (for whom I will forever be grateful for teaching me about the living part) never confused a protocol with a life.
They have the espresso and the three-hour dinner. The discipline and the decadence.
They understand something we keep optimizing ourselves out of remembering: the point was never to perfect the life. The point was to enjoy it.
So I can’t help but wonder: what if the most radical wellness practice available to you right now isn’t another supplement or another plunge?
What if it’s a long lunch with no agenda, a book you can’t put down, a nap you didn’t earn, a night that goes nowhere on purpose?
What if pleasure is the protocol?
P.S. My single most effective wellness ritual this week: a kitchen dance party with Ambi – far too loud, mid-afternoon.
Tell me yours – the unproductive, gloriously pointless thing that actually makes you feel alive. Find me on Instagram @tonyaleigh. I’m collecting them.
Pleasure is not a reward. It’s a requirement.
I don’t have to earn my joy. Not every moment of my day needs to be optimized.
CurrentBody Red Light Therapy Mask
Yes, I know – a red light mask after everything I just said… But I genuinely enjoy this CurrentBody Red Light Therapy Mask, and I can truly see a difference in my skin after using it consistently.
Twenty minutes alone, lying down, doing nothing. Let’s call it a nap with extra steps.
How to Be a Fun Person [From the Archives]
This podcast episode is from the vault – and definitely worth a re-listen. Because if we’re talking about pleasure, we have to talk about fun. And somewhere along the way, a lot of us got very serious.
Press play. You might just remember something you forgot about yourself.
// TheEDIT
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