It’s hard not to wake up exhausted these days. Hard to keep the ball rolling. Just because it’s hard to do, my brain starts to think that it has a choice in the morning. It actually starts to plea with me to let it pass without paying the fee of the day. Whenever it does, I make sure to crush its spirit by forcing myself up. Forcing myself to start. It requires so much focus and attention. Of course I’m not going to want to do it again in the morning. Putting it off and sleeping in sounds like a reasonable option, until you do it. Sleep in over and over again and you’ll never have time for anything else in your day.
The morning always arrives with negotiations. It’s like your own mind turns into a lawyer, arguing for leniency, for “just five more minutes,” for one skipped step. But the thing is—it never stops at five minutes. It becomes thirty. Then the whole morning’s gone, and so is your momentum. That pleading voice isn’t your protector. It’s the embodiment of your past patterns, begging to survive another day. But you’re not the same person anymore. You’ve woken up enough times now to recognize the lie.
Starting anyway is the most violent form of self-respect. You wake up tired, stiff, fogged in the head—but if you rise regardless, you rise different. That version of you—exhausted but still standing—is rare. You don’t need to feel like yourself to act like yourself. The real self isn’t tied to your energy levels. It’s tied to the choice you make in that moment. When you act despite resistance, you remind the rest of your being who is in charge. You remind your body and mind that their vote is not final.
It’s not about being a robot. It’s about being relentless with what matters to you. If it matters, you’ll pay the toll. The price is the same every day: energy, effort, discomfort. But the reward is compound interest in self-trust. Skip the fee too often, and your days become borrowed time—filled with excuses and scarcity. Pay it now, pay it daily, and you build a life where your time is yours again. That’s the real win—freedom through discipline.
