I did everything correctly

For years I did everything correctly.

I worked hard. I followed the steps. I stayed inside the box that had been described to me. I was not lazy and I was not lost. I was compliant.

And it was killing my soul.

Days became months. Months became years. Nothing changed.

If you are new here: October has been four letters, one for each of the four things I actually measure — inflammation, immunity, beauty, lifestyle. This is the last one.

No protocol fixed those years. There is no supplement for a life you have stopped wanting.

What changed it was a question, and I still ask it at the end of every day.

Am I drained, or am I inspired?

That is what I mean by lifestyle. Not a routine. A high view of how I am actually living — work, priorities, personal life — and whether all of it is being maintained, or only the part that pays.

When the answer is drained, I know the shape of it by now. My face goes first, and other people notice before I have said anything. My appetite leaves. My eyes feel heavy. I stop being interested in things that interested me a month ago.

When the answer is inspired, that has a shape too. My body feels light. My work gets better — the writing, the conversations, the thinking. Small things make me smile. I wake up and it strikes me as a gift to be here.

I want to be honest that living this way is not free.

It has meant saying no. No to people and situations that ask me to move against my own values. No to anything I could not proudly put my name beside. I have turned down offers that would have paid me well to represent things I do not believe in.

The largest one was a job. On paper it was the right decision. I knew it would make me miserable, and I said no anyway. That was the moment the rest of this started.

Here is why I put lifestyle last instead of first.

Three weeks ago I wrote about inflammation, and twenty minutes in the morning. Two weeks ago, about the week before travel. Last Sunday, about my face.

Every one of them sits downstream of this question. The morning routine is easy to keep when I am inspired and the first thing I drop when I am drained. The week before a trip only gets protected if I am willing to disappoint someone. And my face is simply the first place the answer shows.

That is what I meant by the one that quietly decides the other three.

One modification, if you want one from this letter.

I eat dinner early.

That is all of it, and it sounds too small to matter. It is the single change that made the biggest difference to how I sleep and how I recover. Our day does not begin in the morning. It begins the night before — with whether we gave the body enough time to finish its work before we asked it to rest.

October was four letters. I would like to end it with a question instead of an answer.

What would you change about how you are living, if you believed you were allowed to? And what should I write next — the questions you have not found a good answer to yet?

Hit reply and tell me. I am building the next series out of what you send.

One more thing. I am working on two projects I am genuinely excited about, and I cannot wait to show you. Not yet. But soon.

And thank you — for opening these letters, and for passing them to the women you thought should read them. I appreciate every one of you more than you know.

I end each day asking whether I am drained or inspired. Some weeks, you are the reason the answer is inspired.

A mulher que cuida de si mesma pode cuidar de tudo.

Cheers to a bella vita, sempre.
Maria Antonietta
Sempre Bella · The Executive Aesthetic™