A quick to-do list for days when you recognise the futility of life. Or, what some people like to call Tuesday morning

1.     Do not panic, panicking is not what we need. It takes over the feeling of nothingness in quite a dramatic way and we are not here to be dramatic. The entire futility of life is a not a dramatic concept, keep a hold of yourself people, now is not the time for extremities.  

2.     Remind yourself of things you are grateful for; e.g, running water, Taylor Swifts Reputation album, the fact that you live on the top floor so the neighbours have to deal with your heavy footsteps and muffled crying sounds, not the other way around  

3.     Call someone you love, for example a parent or friend or someone but definitely not Susan from work. Although I guess she was excluded from the list when we said people you love. Nobody Loves Susan. (Soz Suse) 

4.     Start working on that script for that comedy show you have always wanted to write ‘Nobody Loves Susan’. Ignore all of the haters who think it will just be a female version of ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’. It is nothing like it. You don’t know that for sure as you have never watched ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’, but you are pretty sure it’s not a light comedic exploration of the challenges of work and familial relations in the modern-day world like ‘Nobody Loves Susan’ will be. And anyway, this is about Susan not you Raymond, so fuck off. 

5.     Make yourself a cup of coffee – Because apparently it helps with a dopamine release which is just what we need to get you through this. And most importantly everybody knows when you are in existential crisis you must drink coffee. You’ve seen enough Truffaut films during your arthouse movie, turtleneck wearing, address book owning phase to know how it goes. 

6.     Strike that don’t drink the coffee. That way maybe the French ennui can’t get to you.

7.     Google the connection between ennui and coffee and vow to create some inspirational quote art for Instagram to share with your friends, to remind them how together you are, when they realise life has no meaning and need a pep talk from the completely together 100% successful friend. 

8.     Now you are rekindling your inner artist it’s time to rid yourself of distractions. Turn off your what’s app group notifications. Because you do not need an unsolicited baby picture from your ‘Brunch Babes’ group. Now, is not the time to question how you ended up in a group with ‘Babes’ in the title.  That kind of where did my life go wrong thinking is not helpful. But whilst we are at it, when did the unsolicited dick pics get replaced with unsolicited Baby pics anyway? Actually, maybe that’s self-explanatory. 

9.     Remind yourself that some deep and seemingly unanswerable questions can in fact be answered (see dick pics/ babies above) and feel slightly reassured that you will solve the meaning of life one day, maybe. If you think hard enough about it that is. You could even leave ‘Brunch Babes’ and instead go for coffee in a more rustic looking hipster café with less smoked salmon and more expensive Batch Brew coffee from Guatemala. Either way probably try and dig out one of those old Turtlenecks they are sure to help. 

10.  Get out of bed and log on to your computer so it looks like you are active on the work slack channels. Do not feel the need to get dressed, you can just open some emails. This is what is referred to as ‘remote working’. Because opening mail in your PJ’s has now become a full-time job. And you might as well be earning money whilst you feel purposeless. Because maybe money is the meaning anyway?

11.   Realise you must be in a bad dream because the stupid idea that money equalled success died a long time ago, way back in season three of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Thanks to Goop and Tony Robbins we are now all awakened to the fact that the only form of success and meaning that matters is happiness. Everybody knows that the only bad thing we can do is let ourselves be sad.  And now that you think of it, it’s nearly the full moon so that must be fucking with your sleep.

12.   Roll back over reassured and repeat a mantra from the current self-help book you are reading (My thoughts create my reality, I am the giant within) and wait for the alarm to sound. 

13.  When it does, try not to panic (see point number one). Your oracle deck is just next to your bed and for sure it will have a card to explain everything…