🐥The Paradox of Now #28

A Writer’s Lubricant

Hi people!

Lately I’ve been getting stuck on what to write in these intro sections. It’s like I freeze up, trying too hard to come up with something attention-grabbing

Maybe that’s what an intro really is.

A sort of writer’s lubricant.

Although now I’ve typed that out, I’ve remembered my family reads this.

So… sorry Mum

Anyway, moving swiftly on…

Now let me give you a taste of what's coming:

🐥 My favourite Youtuber doing his mad stuff again
🐥 Me in a gimp mask
🐥 The difference between cereal and krill

🥚Eggstra News🥚

Your weekly dose of some fascinating and fun finds:

👣Beau Miles – Could drive to work in 75 mins. Chooses to walk. Legend.

🧗Dawn Wall – I don’t like documentaries or climbing. I’ve watched this 10 times.

😂Last One Laughing UK – A rare show that made me actually laugh out loud. Gets better every episode. Chaos in the best way.

The Paradox of Now

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Accountabilibuddies

Accountability is possibly the most important word of 2025 for me so far.

Why do we get up every morning and go to work?

Because we’re accountable. Because we’re paid. We do it without question. But when it comes to doing things for ourselves, we fall short.

We tell ourselves we’ll start tomorrow.

But here’s a cliché line for you:

We need to put parameters in place and stick to them if we want to be successful.

At least, I do.

And I’ve come to see that accountability and discipline are closely related. Accountability is like the cousin of discipline. Maybe even discipline in a vicarious form, where you’re not just showing up for yourself, but because someone else expects you to.

Staying disciplined by being held accountable, and building better habits along the way, has been a game-changer for me.

This year, I’ve seen two big areas of improvement in my life, both rooted in accountability and the habits instilled:

1. The gym

2. Writing this newsletter

Let’s start with the gym.

The most influential part of me actually going consistently was a friend of mine, Cal. He’s now a close friend, and he’s heard all the ins and outs of my newsletter and everything in between.

More than being a great listener, he’s been someone who has kept me accountable. And for that I could not thank him enough. He is always been tough but fair with me and knew which buttons he needed to push at times.

All I hope is that I’ve done the same for him.

Well… I know it’s working, because when I saw him shirtless at Glastonbury, the bloke looked like he’d swallowed the gym!

We put rules in place to stay on track. And looking back, we were following the Dailyish mindset (discussed last week) without even realising it.

At the start of the year, we wrote a contract and signed it. We committed to going to the gym at least three times per week and training every muscle group in the process. If we didn’t, we were fined £3 a session.

That money went into a pot to spend at Glastonbury.

The result?

From January to the end of June, I missed the target only three weeks, and Cal missed two. And even then, we still went to the gym twice on those weeks.

Not bad at all.

There were so many days where I’d rather have done literally anything else. Days where we barely spoke because neither of us really wanted to be there.

But we still showed up. We were playing the long game. We knew accountability was the answer.

Even the bad sessions made us feel better afterwards.

Writing this newsletter follows a similar pattern, just with a few twists.

Some openness for you. I pay to write this newsletter. The platform I use, Beehiiv, isn’t free. So right now, I’m losing money on this venture.

At the beginning of the journey, I had a choice:

I stared at the screen for a long time before choosing the yearly option.

Accountability.

And, if we’re honest, tricking myself with a bit of sunk cost bias too.

But it worked. Not only did I save money long-term, I locked myself in. I made myself accountable to keep showing up.

Then I added another rule. Every Friday at 2pm, a new issue would go out.

I haven’t missed one yet. This is number 28 of 52.

Would I have kept going without that sense of accountability?

I’m not sure.

There have been so many micro-decisions that have helped me keep this going. And now, with readers who’ve told me my writing has made a difference to their lives, I feel accountable to them too.

That’s powerful.

So here’s my point.

Human beings have always survived by depending on one another. That hasn’t changed. But maybe we’ve forgotten how powerful it is to simply trust each other and follow through.

And here’s a little insight to end on. Since the gym contract ended, Cal and I have both been training less than three times a week.

I’m OK with that, for now.

But it really shows how powerful accountability can be. I’m sure we’ll get back to it stronger when winter rolls around and the body dysmorphic demons come out of the shadows.

Until then, I’ll continue to write. Even on the weeks I haven’t wanted to…

And that’s including this one.

🐥 Haiku’s Haiku 🐥

Haiku’s been racking up the motorway miles with me. From Corby to Cardiff, always riding shotgun on the back of a fellow duck friend.

A little shoutout to my car.

I’m not a car guy, but I do love and appreciate all your hard work.

🌴 Palm Tree Euphoria 🌴

At uni, my best mate Tom (still one of my all-time favourite humans) and I didn’t exactly live the typical student life.

Instead, we stayed in, made up games, and cried with laughter most nights.

One of our finest creations?

Tom decided “cereal” was too long a word… so he renamed it “krill”

Krill was simple:
✅ We each got a bowl of cereal
✅ First to finish wins
❌ Except… there were no rules

You could knock cereal off the other person’s spoon. You could shout, distract, cheat and do anything but just eat it normally.

It always ended in tears of laughter. And milk usually all up the wall.

Great memories. Love you forever, Tom.

And yes, one day I will get that tattoo of a cereal bowl full of krill.

Now tell me:

I want to hear it. Bonus points for mess.

See you next week Dashing Ducks! 🐥

P.S. if this bowl of chaos stirred up a weird food memory of your own, pass it on to a fellow duckling who’d definitely spill milk for the win.

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