Simple Guide to Life

“I feel like a sad flat pancake”

Quick game. How many of these have you muttered at yourself in the bathroom mirror this month?

• "I feel like a sad flat pancake, I should be way happier than this."
• "I'm making good money... so why does Sunday night feel like a low-grade panini panic attack with extra anxiety anchovies?"
• "I think I'm working on the wrong thing. But honestly... I have no clue if it's the work or just me."
• "Everyone keeps talking about AI. I keep meaning to figure that out..."
• "And finally the ever classic: I've been saying next year for... 3 years."

If you got at least 1, you're in the right place. If you got all 5, congratulations, you couldn't be in a righter place, and also I'm sorry, and also I love you, please let me buy you a drink.

Meet Tomorrow Tony

That voice in your head, the one whispering all 5 of those at you in rotation? I've named him Tomorrow Tony. He shows up every Sunday night, puts his feet up on your psyche, and promises that everything will be different starting Q1. Tony is not your friend.

No matter what Tony says: you're not lazy. You're not behind. You're just stuck in the gap between what you want your life to look like and what you spend your days doing.

You are a pancake. Bear with me.

Imagine yourself on a griddle. There are 4 ways this can go.

Burnt. Crispy black on one side from working too hard for too long. Still raw and gooey on the other side because you never developed the parts of yourself that actually matter to you. Inedible. Possibly a sad seagull eats you in a parking lot. That's burnout. That was me, at multiple times in my life.

Raw. You never got cooked at all. You hesitated. You doomscrolled. You "thought about it." A gooey, soft pale circle of unrealized potential staring at a closing window. That was also me, for like 4 years. Possibly 5 if we're being honest.

Flat. You got cooked, but with no rise. Just a beige disc of standard pancakery going through the motions. The exec who hits all their KPIs and quietly wonders if this is it. Probably owns a Peloton they haven't ridden since last year's New Year's resolution.

Golden and fluffy. Rises tall. Tastes incredible. The kind of pancake people see and go "wait what is that, I need that in my life." That's the goal.

Why do so many of us end up burnt or flat or raw? Because nobody ever taught us how to make our own recipe. We were handed someone else's recipe at birth, and most of us just... cooked. That stops today. The worksheet below is where you start figuring out your recipe.