30 Days of Writing, Day 6: Don't Do Things You Know You'll Regret

You choose the suffering you want to experience. “Suffer the pain of discipline or suffer the pain of regret.”

As I struggle (and groan at the words that I’m typing) to think and push through with this article, I know that at any time, I can just switch to a new tab and continue mindlessly browsing Twitter and Hacker News.

The problem with doing that is that I know that I’ll hate myself in the morning when the feeling of having skipped a day clouds over me, and I’d rather just kludge through writing this post even if I’m really sleepy and tired.

I’ve found that basing my actions around “Don’t do things that you know you’ll regret in the future” has really improved my decision making and general contentment. I write these words knowing that this is just part of the process of getting better at the craft of writing.

At some point in the past, my writing was truly, truly horrendous, and at some point in the future, I’ll be passable, and at some point even further than that, I can probably even be good.

All I need is just a few more hundred hours of practice and struggle. On to Day 7!