Practicing Delayed Gratification.

or The Subtle Art of Pretending to Not Give a Fuck

“Why do I always have to be upset about something?” I pleaded through quiet tears to my therapist on Monday. “Why is it always something?”

“It’s the anxiety,” she reminded me gently for the 37,000th time.

“I know but WHY?”

“It needs something to focus on. One week it’s your body image, the next it’s your online image. It jumps from focus to focus. It’s a little bitch,” she said, using our long-standing term for my GAD (generalized anxiety disorder), AKA “little bitch.”

Let’s back up a few hours. On Sunday, I sent out my first paid subscribers-only newsletter. I worked all morning creating a special video for it, working hard to deliver this truly exclusive content that subscribers have opted in to receive. When I pressed “send,” I was elated. Proud. Confident. I felt so strongly about what I had just delivered to paying members’ inboxes, that I even semi-skipped down the hall to tell Zac about this big, virtual step I had taken.

“Fuck yeah, babe!” He congratulated me with a high five and a hug. I felt empowered.

But when my email notifications didn’t immediately start buzzing, letting me know that people liked it, appreciated it, decided to upgrade to paid because of it, my very short-lived bubble deflated like a cheap, last-minute grocery store balloon someone blew up themselves instead of opting for the real deal helium.

Instead of continuing to take pride in what I had spent the first half of my day creating and sharing, I turned on myself in an instant and became my own worst enemy like I always do.

I began checking my stats obsessively, seeing free subscribers drop all together because of how offensive they had found my first ever paywall. I wanted to unsend the email. I wanted to take it back. I wanted to furiously type up an apology letter to everyone I had offended and promise to never do it again and beg their forgiveness. To act ashamed that I would ever consider my content to be of value and express what a fool I was.

But I did none of those things. Instead, I patiently waited until 10:30am the next morning so I could ask Ann what she thought.

“I was so confident and happy and in an instant, it was gone,” I told her. “Even Zac asked how the hell I went from so pumped up to so down like *that* in a matter of hours.”

“We need to identify your trigger,” she explained. “What happened right before you turned on yourself?”

I sat there for a minute, thinking.

“I guess it was when I didn’t feel my email buzzing immediately with notifications about subscriptions and likes and comments, so I went to my dashboard and started checking stats.”

“Ok. Remember when you were here last month, you were really upset about your physical progress and how you were weighing yourself every day and seeing no change, right?”

“Yeah…”

“And today, you have a completely different attitude about it. You walked in and said ‘Oh THAT? I’m over that. I feel great!’ So what did you change with that situation that made you feel better?”

“I guess it’s that I had Zac hide our scales and stopped weighing myself every day. Almost as soon as he did, I started noticing my clothes were fitting better and I felt lighter physically. Then, when I weighed myself for the first time a month later, I had lost weight!”

“So what’s an equivalent action you can take here?”

A lightbulb went off in my head. I started connecting the dots. I looked like this

“I have to stop checking my email and stats immediately. I need to go into my settings and turn off all notifications from Substack and wait a solid 24 hours until I look at anything. Oh my God, Ann. You’re a genius! You should be a therapist.”

She laughed.

Instant gratification is a drug.

This isn’t new information. There have been endless studies done on how social media has ruined our patience and all but banished any semblance of mystery from our lives. This is especially true if you’re a very online person who creates daily content for others to consume. Every notification—be it an email, a buzzing of your phone, a heart, a DM—is a hit of dopamine. It’s validation that you’re liked—nay, loved. That you’re worthy, important, special. People are happy to hear from you. They like you and your content and are eager to let you know immediately. You feel seen and heard and, in some cases, favored.

It’s a drug I’ve been on for years now, and while I may not be able to quit cold turkey, I’m weaning off in a big way.

I check stats like a fucking broker on Wall Street. Every morning I roll over, grab my phone, and check my stats: podcast listens, podcast reviews, commission numbers, emails, subscribers, DMs, likes. Like weighing myself every day, I’m trying to find my daily worth based off sets of numbers. And like weighing myself every day, I’m putting the proverbial stats scale away. When I did that in real life for my body, I gained clarity, happiness, and actually lost weight. I imagine doing this with my stats will ultimately allow me to gain the same and not lose sight of why I create my content in the first place—

Because it’s fucking fun and I love doing it.

It’s also why you may have noticed that I haven’t been on Instagram nearly as much. I’m taking a step back because, well, I need to. I need a break from the instantaneous nature of it all and am taking my time for the first time in a long time. The energy I would usually expend posting and scrolling endlessly is being redirected to creating thoughtful newsletters and podcast episodes that include all the things I would usually share on Instagram that disappear within 24 hours, and I have to say—I really like this intentional, delayed me. She seems chiller, more creative, and more interesting to be around.

Do I still want to check everything all of the time? Of course. Do I feel like Ewan McGregor in Trainspotting? 100%. But I also feel freedom I haven’t felt in a long time to get back to just having fun and can slowly but surely feel the chokehold instant gratification has had on me for so many years loosening.

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READING 📖

I finished The Perfect Couple late Monday night and really enjoyed it. I say this in this week’s podcast, but I’m realizing that my favorite kind of storytelling is when the POV jumps from character to character every chapter. It keeps things interesting by quite literally offering varying perspectives. It’s a beautiful and impressive skill some authors have, and I appreciate it deeply. Next up for me is The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, which I’ll start reading poolside this weekend in Cabo.

WATCHING 📺

Honestly, not much. This week was jam-packed with work for both my husband and me, and we weren’t doing our usual nighttime veg. We did, however, watch Executive Decision over the weekend and it was great if you love the 90’s and Kurt Russell.

We’re also pissing our pants laughing over the latest season of South Park, which is now available on HBO. That show… I’m just so glad it’s still around. It’s the exact kind of offensive, irreverent humor I love, and they make fun of e.v.e.r.y.o.n.e.

LISTENING 🎧

If you love female rappers and trap music, go to The Assignment by Tay Money radio on Spotify, hit play, and thank me later.

MAKING 🔪

As you probably could’ve predicted, I didn’t do much cooking this week either with a vacation on the horizon! However, I did make these chocolate energy date balls and they were surprisingly good and very simple. The walnuts really do the trick by adding that nutty flavor. Otherwise, they’d just be balls of globbity guck. With the walnuts, they’re globbity guck with a lovely nutty note. You can get cute with them, too, by coating them in more walnuts, sprinkles, etc. I used white sugar crystal sprinkles and felt fancy.

SHOPPING 🛍️

Over the weekend, I got my nails done and chose Casablanca by Dazzle Dry for the color and love it so much. I’ve having a moment with this color blue right now (more specifically, dark sea foam green), which makes sense because it’s also the color of my office, our den, and guest room.

Speaking of blue things, one of the items I tried on in the paid subscribers’ letter on Sunday was this blue bikini from Abercrombie, and I am completely obsessed with it and how it makes me feel. I love it so much that I got the black, too and both are coming with me to Cabo. (sizes: medium bottoms, medium top in CURVE fit)

I realized it was high time to retire my hair towel and get a brand new one because it’s been… years. I use the Deva Curl hair towel and refuse to let anything else touch my hair when wet. It’s an anti-frizz, microfiber made for curls and nothing beats it.

I bought this book light for nighttime reading last May, and it JUST NOW lost its charge. What in the living hell? So it goes without saying that I strongly recommend it if you’re in the market because not only is it the perfect shade of amber, but it lasts.

Although I won’t be tracking a single calorie or gram of protein in Cabo, I am bringing a few individual packs of Vital Protein Collagen Peptides for my morning coffee.

Lastly, all I want for my birthday are adidas Sambas. I don’t care what color, I just want them. But they are the world’s most popular sneaker right now and are next to impossible to find in your size for not $1,000,000. Okay more like over $200, but still. That is not their typical cost; they’re just up charging because of the demand. Damn you, consumerism!!!

Until next week…

— EGM