Inspir.es

Yesterday I woke up with a sore back. I’m sure my flu symptoms had something to do with those achy muscles - but I couldn’t help but wonder whether my mattress had a hand in it too.

I’ve had this mattress since college. It was a hand-me-down from my Brazilian roommate Bruno. And come to think of it, Bruno got the mattress secondhand when he moved to America.

Jesus, my mattress is probably a relic of the 90’s.

Thinking about my mattress led me to wonder: “If I continue to sleep on my outdated, inwardly sloped mattress for too long - will I start to look like a hunchback?” I know a night, week, month, even a year of restless nights on a cheap mattress can’t cause irreversible damage. But five years of cumulative poor rest could, right?

I then began thinking of the negative cumulative consequences of other things: frequent bike riding, working with a laptop on my lap, drinking to excess nearly every weekend, going to 15 or 20 loud rock shows a year.

I had never considered how much these things could add up. I began to cringe thinking about being 40 and having the health and cognizance of Ozzy Osbourne. But then I realized…

There are positive cumulative effects too.

Every workday I spend 7-8 hours managing awesome freelancers and helping people connect with customers on the Internet. Every day I also spend a few more hours reading and learning about how to do what I do better. I’ve read so much that I’m getting to the point where I want to shut off the spigot of information and just start taking action. Often.

And this feels incredible. It’s like the past three years I’ve been accumulating everything I need to know to make what I’m about to do possible.

Think about the actions you’re taking in life that might have a cumulative effect. Especially the positive ones. And instead of trying to do everything today. Just do one thing.

One stupid little thing.

Read a few pages in that giant book. Run for 10 minutes. Say a few nice words to your roommate or your bed mate.

It doesn’t seem like much at the time, because it isn’t. It just really adds up.

(Thanks to Shelly and Sarah for reading drafts of this)