🥴 Bob the Neck Throb: Epilogue, Part Two
“If you can get 1 percent better each day for one year, you’ll end up thirty-seven times better by the time you’re done. Conversely, if you get 1 percent worse each day for one year, you’ll decline nearly down to zero. What starts as a small win or a minor setback accumulates into something much more.”
—James Clear, Atomic Habits
⏪ Catch up on Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5. 👀 Where we left off:
Who are these people who can get one percent better every day?! Until Bob called, I had been haunted by the line above from James Clear’s über-bestseller, Atomic Habits.1
I was getting one percent worse. I wanted to scream into the void, I AM DOING THE BEST THAT I CAN!
But my best still felt like it wasn’t good enough.
In a way, it wasn’t. Bob the Neck Throb was building momentum and about to take me down so he could wake me up—in more ways than one.
They say the body is less forgiving of slights as we age. In many ways, I am grateful.
While en route to the spaffice last week, I threw a favorite pair of flowy, soft, burnt orange pants into my bag for my meeting with Dorie afterward. I had a feeling they were going to fit. Sorta. But it was still a risk; I didn’t know for sure, and I was too lazy to take off my gym clothes at home and try them on first.
Once at Equinox, I cycled through a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it twenty-minute workout just to keep my streak, followed by a five-minute steam room session to calm the resulting asthma.
While getting dressed, I gulped as I pulled the pants up. I wondered if the zipper would close and the clasp at the top would latch, given that they refused to climb over my thighs a few months ago. Six months before that, I sent them to the tailor to fix that same clasp, as I had literally burst it at the seams while willing the pants to fit.
If they didn’t work today, I’d need to revert back to my sweaty yoga pants instead, a bit inappropriate for the swanky lunch spot Dorie and I picked.
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