On being late

This was supposed to reach you Monday.

Most weeks it goes like this—I wake up, go for my morning walk, take care of my pets. Eventually, I make my coffee and sit down, two hours later, start-to-finish, hitting publish and send on this blog and newsletter. That's the rhythm. I didn't question it. Why would I? It's what I do. It's what works.

Until it doesn't.

Monday afternoon I had an interview. One of the most important I've had in a long time—for a role I want not just need and with the hiring manager—the real thing. And I prepared for it the way it deserved. When it was over, I felt the exhale of being done.

I just had an incomplete done in mind.

Tuesday, rinse repeat. Woke up, walked, fed animals. I made my coffee and turned to other things, because Tuesdays aren't when I write. Wednesday? The same. The groove I trust so much carried me right past the thing it usually carries me towards.

Then this afternoon, I was wrapping up with a coaching client. She asked when I teach yoga next—she wanted to come! I laughed and teased her that she must not read my newsletters.

And then I heard myself.

I hadn't written it this week; I hadn't sent it! The newsletter I was teasing her for not reading didn't exist.

Here's the part I want to sit with instead of brush past or tidy up. This is what I teach. Self-awareness, choice, presence—being in the moment vs bypassing it. I coach people through exactly this. And yet...I walked through three full days on autopilot, so sure of my own rhythm that I never noticed it had skipped a beat.

Patanjali names nine antarāyas, or obstacles that scatter the mind (sutra 1.30). Pramāda is one of them: carelessness, negligence, the lapse of attention. He doesn't list these impediments to shame us. He lists them to awaken us to them, as we're all human, and they happen to each of us.

The symptoms? General suffering, frustration or despair, unsteadiness or nervousness, irregular breathing (sutra 1.31). Yes to all of those (especially when you're unemployed, job searching and interviewing!). The solution? Abhyasa (consistent practice) and vairagya (nonattachment to outcomes).

The scattering isn't the failure of the practice. It's the reason we practice.

So tomorrow morning, I'll make my coffee again. Same cup, same chair. And I'll direct my attention better this time—not because I've fixed anything, but because being late and getting caught is its own kind of waking up.

Late, and here.

And I'll be here again Monday—I promise. With coffee.