For years I have fantasized about doing the impossible “perfect month.” In stark opposition to the tenets of our current cultural milieu, the perfect month is an act of radical defiance against the endemic notions of moderation, self-care, and “taking it easy on yourself.” The perfect month is not the “almost perfect month,” anymore than a 1-hitter is a no-hitter in baseball. There is no “almost no-hitter,” you either put your name in the record books or you don’t.
The idea for the perfect month is simple: for one month’s time, you do everything perfectly. You wake up at the right time, you go to sleep at the right time, you eat exactly the pre-planned amount of calories for the day, you exercise the prescribed amount of time you planned to exercise. Your schedule is planned in advance, and there is no room for error. You maximize the usage of your time; you engage in no wasteful behaviors, no wasteful thinking, and certainly no wasteful feelings. You become a sheet of steel, an impenetrable wall of stoic humanity singularly directed at the goal that lies in front of you.
There is no margin for error. There is no days off or down time. 30 days, 720 hours, 43,200 minutes of pure swoosh.
You can hear the collective creaking of therapists across the world shifting in their chairs as I say this. The perfect month? Come now, H.P…why set yourself up for failure? Surely no one can be perfect for a day let alone a whole month? Why not make a moderate goal for self-improvement and slowly build from there? How about you go to bed 15 minutes earlier every night? How about you have some fresh fruit for dessert and cut out the second cup of coffee? Surely a more moderate approach is more likely to succeed!
My response: fuck you.
Of all of the current strains of behavioral psychology that blatantly defy common sense, this is one of the worst: the idea that gradual improvements are always the best approach to personal change. Is anyone not even the tiniest bit suspicious about this? You know, the fact that every magazine, research study, weight loss program, doctor, nurse, psychologist, website, tv show, commercial, etc etc etc has been recommending gradual changes as the apotheosis maneuver of self-improvement, and yet we are all more fat, depressed, and psychotic than ever before? Hmm…it’s almost as if they are intent on keeping us this way?
It’s almost as if the most successful people realize that “balance” is, at best, a tenuous self-management strategy. Certainly on longer timelines, balance is the best bet. But somewhere along the warpath of institutional capture carried about by the relentless soldiers of “positive psychology" (ironically the most miserable gaggle of people on the planet, by the way), we began to assume that moderation, balance, and the “middle way” was the appropriate approach for every situation, all the time.
Bullshit. Anyone who has really reached for something, anyone who has taken a leap toward something grand out there will tell you that balance is a luxury. Do you think most great novels were written from a place of balance? How about the great leaders of history, do we really believe they all had a balanced breakfast and 8 hours of sleep a night? In my own experiences, moments of greatness came about when I pursued a sustained period of imbalance; a manic drive toward a goal for which I cease at nothing.
The proof is in the pudding, and the pudding is rotten. How confused our culture is about this “balance” idea, to the point that only the rubes are the ones falling for it. We are consistently bombarded with propaganda that tells us to expect nothing from life, pursue no adventure, no great victory, no moment in the sun. We are told to stop and listen to silence and from that silence we are to know happiness. We are told to go back to our breath, meditate on the essentialness of our existence, and be glad that we are at least alive.
Again, I say: Fuck you.
What is the point of all of this toil and trouble we call life if my only purpose is to endure endless slings and arrows only to, at last, succumb to the infirmities of aging. I want to do something, be something, have something, achieve something, mean something. If you don’t want that, then you are either lying, or you are among the inert anesthetized individuals that believe that fame, fortune, and fun are only for people like Lizzo and Harry Styles. You want to be rich? Important? You want to be remembered for all time? Don’t be selfish! You just need to listen to yourself breathe and you should be happy that you have at least that much!!
What a load of shit. How do we so easily fall for these things? Do we not see this machine at work? Perhaps we see it so plainly that it has become invisible, like the name of that muffler shop at the end of your block (Hernandez & Sons, maybe?).
The truth is that there is very little difference between you and the people you see on TV, or Instagram, or TikTok. Most of them are as clueless and idiotic as the rest of us. The only difference is that they realized that it was possible to do something extraordinary, whereas the rest of us just assume the extraordinary is out there for someone else to have.
So that brings us back, now, to the perfect month. In 40 days, I have to go to Portugal to give a speech at a wedding. As the bride is from the US and the husband is from Portugal, I have been tasked with doing the speech in both Portuguese and English. I was informed of this obligation about 4 months ago, and have been learning Portuguese since. I am now in the home stretch. Most say that it takes nine months minimum to have a basic grasp on a new language. But that’s assuming that one of those nine months isn’t a perfect month.
In the next month, I am going to do it all: exercise, eat, sleep, recreate, and learn all according to a perfect schedule. I am unafraid of this extraordinary task, because I know that I, too, am an extraordinary person.
Been thinking about similar things; I'm learning Chinese and in all the YT vids with language learning advice there's always an item listed about "give yourself breaks, don't burn out!" Etc etc. And I've always thought, f that! I'm gonna go hard 24/7, breaks are for quitters! And honestly that approach works out pretty well. Thanks for the essay.
Do it! Want to hear our see a copy of that speech. Also John travolta learned Portuguese in a car ride in Phenomenon. So four months sounds easy.