A slightly rushed day

Today’s article needs to be written more hastily, because the time to write the article is very late. And it was already twelve o’clock in the morning, which seriously delayed my sleep time. Fortunately, this happens only a few times a year, and it is something that will definitely happen every year. How to do it remains to be seen.

People always seem a little passive in front of time. The day was cut up by all kinds of trivial matters, and my attention seemed to be torn into pieces by invisible hands. When I really sat down, the night was already deep. Writing at this time is actually more like an explanation to oneself rather than an expression to the outside world. The difference between writing and not writing is not the eight hundred words, but a kind of continuous confirmation - confirmation that you are still on the road, confirmation that your thinking has not stopped, and confirmation that today has not been completely wasted.

But reason will also remind me: long-termism does not mean overdraftism. Staying up late once in a while is a compromise in reality, but staying up late frequently may be a sign that the rhythm is out of control. For a person who makes a living by output, energy is the capital. Overdrafting your energy is essentially using future compound interest. If you write more today, you may think less tomorrow; if you sleep an hour later today, your judgment may be dulled tomorrow. A simple truth that the investment market has taught me is - don’t sacrifice long-term positions for short-term fluctuations. Life is actually the same.

Perhaps more importantly, distinguish between “necessary urgency” and “anxiety disguised as urgency.” Some things really must be completed on the same day, such as content that has been promised, such as one’s own rhythm requirements; but there are also many things that are actually just the fear of falling behind, the fear of interruption, and the fear of losing a certain sense of existence. Without discrimination, everything will be labeled by the brain as “do it now.” So under the lights late at night, fatigue and responsibility are mixed together, making people mistakenly think that this is struggle.

But think about it calmly, there are only more than 300 days in a year, and what really affects the trajectory of life is often not one early morning, but countless stable, regular, and sustainable days. Real accumulation comes from stable output, clear judgment, and a healthy body. The occasional rush can serve as a reminder to yourself whether you have organized your day well enough, and to remind yourself whether you have set aside real prime time for important things.

Tonight’s text may not be refined enough, but it is true. It records a state: tired, but still willing to sit down; sleepy, but still trying to sort out thoughts. Such a state is itself a kind of training for the self. Not every time has to be productive, not every time has to be profound. Sometimes it is just a matter of pressing the keyboard, turning chaos into paragraphs, writing anxiety into sentences, and letting time leave traces.

As I write this, I feel a little calmer. Maybe the so-called “you have to see what you want to do” is not to see the answer from the outside world, but to see whether your own rhythm is clear and whether your boundaries are stable. When you wake up tomorrow, you may be a little tired because of tonight’s choices, but as long as the overall rhythm is still controllable, this late night is just a small bend in the long road.

So, give yourself a closure. Before turning off the lights, admit today’s imperfections and your persistence. Then sleep. Because what is really important is not these eight hundred words, but that when you wake up tomorrow, you are still willing to continue writing.