I Can Fix You

It starts out ordinary, like most stuff that ends up being life-changing does.

I’m in that phase again where I’m trying to improve myself, like it’s a second job, like it’s a subscription I can’t cancel because I’m scared of what happens if I stop paying attention.

I’m reading non-fiction on the train with my thumb holding the page down, like the words might escape if I loosen my grip. I’m halfway through some chapter about habits or mindset or whatever it is this week, and I’ve got my notes app open, and I’m typing out sentences I’m convinced will change everything, even though I already know I’m never going to look at them again.

And I’ve got podcasts on as well, obviously.

Voices in my ears telling me what I should be doing with my mornings, my money, my thoughts, my posture, my gut bacteria. I’m walking around with these invisible people in my head giving me advice while I’m trying to buy some milk.

I’m waking up earlier, not even because I need to, but because it feels like a moral act. Like waking up at 5 makes me a better person, not just a tired one.

I’m going to the gym and doing that thing where you’re not even listening to your body, you’re listening to the version of you that you’re trying to become, the future one, the improved one, the one who finally looks like they’ve got their shit together.

I’m tracking sleep like sleep is an exam. I’m looking at little graphs in the morning like, right, okay, I got 84, my wife only has a 78. Great. I beat her. What does that say about me as a human being?

I’m trying new productivity systems (again). I’ve got one of those notebooks with the thick paper, the kind that makes you feel serious just by touching it. I’m colour-coding tasks. I’m moving little blocks around in my calendar. I’m doing admin on my own existence.

And it’s not that any of this is bad, not really. Some of it genuinely helps.

I do feel better when I move my body.

I do feel calmer when I eat like a grown up instead of like a bin.

Sometimes a good idea lands and it stays and it’s useful.

But it’s exhausting. It’s stressful. It’s expensive in that sneaky way, because even the “free” stuff costs you attention, costs you time, costs you that internal pressure of always being slightly behind your own expectations.

And underneath all of it, there’s this constant hum, like an appliance you forget is on until the power cuts.

I’m not quite good enough.

Not yet.

I’m close, I tell myself. I’m nearly there. I can almost see the version of me that’s allowed to relax. Just a few more books. Just a bit more discipline. Just a better morning routine. Just one more small fix that unlocks that big thing.

Always striving. Always scanning the horizon for the next tweak. The next lever. The next upgrade.

And then, one day, I’m doing it in public, which is always when it feels most ridiculous.

I’m sat in a café with my laptop open, and I’ve got a tab with a spreadsheet and a tab with a “How to be more focused” article and a tab with a video called something like I Fixed My Life in 30 Days, and my coffee is going cold because I’m too busy optimising my breathing to drink it, and I catch my reflection in the window.

Just a quick glance. A face in the glass, overlit, overtired.

Am a project? Am I “incomplete"?

Are you?

Because that’s the script, isn’t it. Somewhere along the way, we get handed this thing that says: Fix yourself.

And I don’t remember agreeing to it. It just shows up. In the self-help shelves. In the goal-setting culture. In the way people talk about themselves like they’re a house they’re renovating. In the subtle messages wrapped up as encouragement.

Do more. Be better. Earn your worth.

Even when it’s kind. Even when it’s well-meaning. It still has that little hook in it, that idea that you need to become something else before you deserve to feel okay.

And I realise I’ve been living like I’m one breakthrough away from permission.

Permission to rest.

Permission to feel proud.

Permission to take up space without apologising.

Permission to stop monitoring myself.

And it’s mad because if someone I loved came to me with that energy, if they sat down and said, “I’m almost good enough, I just need to sort a few things out,” I’d feel something in my chest go tight. I’d want to grab their face gently and say, no, no, listen to me, you’re already here. You're already enough.

But for me? I just don’t trust that voice.

I treat my own life like I’m a politician who thinks they already know everything. (Isn't that all of them?). I read about that, actually, and it lodged in my brain in an annoying way. UK and Belgian politicians being shown real polling on green policies, and still not believing it, still thinking their instincts were better than the data.

They’re looking at numbers in black and white and going, nah, that can’t be right.

And I clock it like a mirror.

Because I do that to myself constantly.

I underestimate the evidence. I ignore the data. I look at the actual facts — that I’ve kept going, that people have loved me, that I’ve shown up, that I’ve built things and repaired things and survived things I didn’t think I could — and still I go, nah, can’t be right. Not quite. Not yet. Keep striving.

It’s like my brain has a filter that turns “enough” into “nearly.”

And when I’m in the thick of it, I don’t even notice. I just keep reaching.

Next book. Next system. Next habit. Next version.

Like the next version of me will finally be the one who’s allowed to put the bag down.

But every so often I get tired, properly tired, not the kind that sleep fixes.

The kind of tired that comes from always reaching for something just out of reach.

It’s like you’ve been holding your arms up for ages and you didn’t realise because everyone else is doing it too, and then one day you just can’t, and your shoulders drop, and you feel the blood rush back into your hands.

And in that moment, you get it… this is enough.

You’re enough.

Just you, as you are, with the messy desk and the inconsistent discipline and the brain that spirals and the heart that keeps trying.

It doesn’t last long. It’s not something I can pin down and turn into a routine, because the second I try to package it, it becomes another project.

But when it arrives, it feels real in a way the striving doesn’t.

It feels like standing on the ground instead of running on a treadmill that’s dressed up like a journey.

So what now?

I don’t have a plan. I don’t want a plan. A plan would be me sneaking the script back in through the side door, wouldn’t it? “Step one: accept yourself. Step two: do it perfectly.”

All I know is this: when I stop trying so hard to become someone else, I feel more like myself.

And maybe that’s the whole thing.

Maybe the real work isn’t becoming better.

Maybe it’s remembering I was never not enough to begin with.

Maybe I don’t need to earn my own belonging.

Maybe I don’t need to prove it with early mornings and tracked sleep and notes I’ll never reread.

Maybe I can just sit here, in this body, in this life, with my coffee going cold, and let “enough” be a fact instead of a finish line.

And even as I say that, I can feel the old reflex twitching, like, yeah but what if you could be more.

And I just let it twitch.

I let my mind be noisy.

I don’t try to defeat it.

I take a breath.

I pick up the mug.

It’s warm again where my hands touch it.

And I’m here.

I’m here, and for a second, that's all I need.

Until next time,

Jon "Just me" Kaye

Choosing to live more deliberately

P.S.

I've written a new song for Do Radio that's coming out soon. About being seen. About being enough. Watch out for it. All my tracks to date are here on this playlist. Please follow it and share it with your (closest) friends.