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This week’s question comes to us anonymously:

Mike, how do I get out of bed every day? How do I try?

Last night, like a lot of people, I sat down to watch Game 4 of the NBA Finals. To be clear, I don’t really have a rooting interest in either team. They both have a good storyline and they’re both pleasant enough, and either would be worthy champions. (As a fan of either team, I understand it is your duty to disagree with me here.) Mostly, I am rooting for more basketball, because it’s become one of those good things that provides me with a quantum of solace from all the bad things. (This was rudely interrupted in Game 3 when Knicks owner James Dolan, who is a piece of shit, invited his good friend Donald Trump, who is an even bigger piece of shit, to sit next to him during the game. Which killed the vibe for everyone, including the Knicks, who lost a game for the first time in about a month.)

As I sat there last night watching Game 4, the Spurs caught fire right out of the gate, and the game felt like it was headed towards a rout, which isn’t too much fun to watch unless you’re a fan of the team doing the routing. (You probably know how it ended by now, but for the three of you who didn’t watch, I should alert you that spoilers are coming.) By halftime, the Spurs were up by 27 points. Even more importantly, they were playing great and the Knicks looked absolutely lost. Which isn’t usually the kind of thing that can be fixed midgame. Sometimes it’s just not your night. This was about the time that Erika got home, looked at the score and said “Trump really fucked the Knicks” which at the time felt absolutely true. Sometime towards the beginning of the third quarter a couple of neighbors came by, brought some snacks, also looked at the score, and we all decided our time was better spent gossiping about the neighbors that weren’t there because, like I said, routs aren’t that much fun to watch. But also we like talking shit about the neighbors.

Except, I kept one eye on the game, and I noticed that the 27 point lead was slowly starting to disappear. I gently nudged my neighbor.

“Something is happening.”

By the middle of the fourth quarter we were all giving the game our full attention. Long story short, the Knicks pulled it out and won the game by a point. Dramatically! By a single solitary point. Teams are not supposed to come back and win games they are losing this badly. In fact, the Knicks set a record for biggest reversal of an ass kicking in Finals history.

“You’re allowed to think about the worst possible scenario, but you gotta go out there and do something about it.”

That was the post-game quote from Jalen Brunson, the Knicks very, very good point guard. And it bears repeating: you’re allowed to think about the worst possible scenario, but you gotta go out there and do something about it.

The last x amount of years has forced us to think about the worst possible scenario way too much. We wake up to bad news. We contemplate the bad news. We start spiraling about the bad news. And then we get an alert telling us that if we thought that was the bad news—LOL—here’s even worse news. The last x (yes, I am letting you fill in your own number) amount of years has been an avalanche of increasingly bad possible scenarios to the point where “the worst thing that could happen” has a shelf-life of about five minutes before something even worse comes along.

And here’s where I have to be real with you. The last couple of weeks I have been feeling this. Intensely. Granted, it’s a low key intensity but there’ve been moments where it spikes to a dangerous level. But it got to the point where I found myself on a phone call with my therapist saying “I am concerned.”

Over the last few years I’ve managed to carve out a “way of dealing with all the shit” that’s mostly worked. (And look, let me be clear—I know there are people out there going through much, much worse shit. But whatever shit we carry around with us is real.) I try to fill my time with activities and tricks and rules and places where I can try to get away from the “worst possible scenarios.” This isn’t to say that I was attempting to ignore the horrible things happening in the world. I’m not sure I could do that even if I wanted to. There’s a difference between sticking your head in the sand, and occasionally needing to stick it in a tub of ice water. These are things I do to stay sane. Riding my bike. Going to my art studio. Writing. Sitting in the park and chatting with my neighbors in the evening. Watching one of my “calming” TV shows. (Currently Taskmaster.) Little things like washing the dishes to make me feel like I had control over something, even if it was just a clean sink, man. Or folding my socks just to feel like something was ordered and organized. Or sitting down to watch a basketball game between two teams that I had no rooting interest in. Little mental health tricks that help to reset me, or recharge me, or just to take me away from the current level of everything sucking all at once all the time.

Over the last few weeks I’ve felt the walls closing in a little bit. Which isn’t good. But it’s also completely understandable because if I were to ask you about the worst thing that happened this week, I’d be liable to get 30 different answers and none of them would be wrong. But like the man said, “you’re allowed to think about the worst possible scenario, but you gotta go out there and do something about it.”

And look, I wouldn’t be here writing about all of this if I hadn’t started to pull myself out of it. Part of it is that I’ve promised myself that no matter what, once a week I will sit down at my desk, pick out a question that a real human being (I hope) sent to me, and attempt to answer it, and to answer it in a way that I think might not just help them, but possibly a few other people who might read it. This is the work. I’ve made this the work. And since we’re being honest with each other, this works helps me as much as it (hopefully) helps you. Because as long as I do this, I feel useful. As long as I do this, it helps keep all the horrible shit at bay for just a little bit. And right now, I am writing this down more to remind myself of why I do it than to tell you.

But also, I’ve had to remind myself to keep moving. Solace doesn’t stay in one place for very long. And what’s worked for the last few months isn’t going to work forever. Human beings survive by constantly reinventing themselves. We adapt. We scatter. We reconvene where it’s safer. And when we’re at our best, we look out for the people who need us. If you look out over the history of humankind, you will of course find people who did some very bad shit. But you will also find people who absolutely refused to give up. No matter what the score was.

Since your question was specifically about getting out of bed, I’ll tell you this. Before I go to bed every night, I remind myself of what I’m going to accomplish tomorrow. And I’m not talking about meetings at work, and that kind of garbage. That shit sorts itself. I’m talking about the shit that makes you feel useful.

Tomorrow I am going to sneak a note into my kid’s lunch.

Tomorrow I am going to buy donuts for everyone in the dog park.

Tomorrow I am going to reach out to a friend I haven’t heard from in a while.

Tomorrow I am going to paint.

Tomorrow I am going to sort my socks.

None of these things will, in and of themselves, change the world. Except that they will. Little by little. Act by act. Your kid will remember the notes you used to put in their lunch, even if they act embarrassed about it now. A donut can change your neighbor’s day. Your friend might be dying for a phone call from a friend. The flowers you get your partner “just because” might become a memory that becomes a lifeline. I tell you this from experience. When I was feeling like shit last week, Erika showed up from the grocery store with flowers for me. And there were several occasions when I was feeling so low that the voice in my head started telling me no one cared about me. Then I remembered that someone got me flowers. People do not get you flowers if they don’t care about you.

There is no 28 point shot in basketball. The only way to come back from a 27 point deficit is one shot at a time. Two points here. Two points there. A few three pointers sprinkled in. Some timely foul shots. And you have to do all of this while the other team is trying to do the same thing. Trying to grind you down. You just have to score a little bit more than they do over a set span of time. And if you score just one more point than they do at the end, you win.

Unlike the Knicks (and the Spurs, I suppose) we don’t have the luxury of a seven game series. No one would’ve been shocked if the Knicks had decided that Game 4 was out of reach, took the L, and focused on winning the games ahead. The NBA Finals is a best-of-seven series. We don’t have that luxury. Life is a single-elimination game. We have to go out there and do something about it, because we don’t get another shot at it. (Also, we don’t get a parade at the end. Or maybe we do, we just don’t get to be a part of it.) When things seem lost, that’s when you need to do the work.

You get out of bed to do the work.

Knicks in five.

🙋 Got a question you need answered? Ask it. Please. I need to be useful.

📣 The next Presenting w/Confidence workshop is scheduled for June 25–26. If you need help interviewing, or talking to folks about your work in general. I can help you.

📓 My new book, How to die (& other stories), is filled with essays like this one. It will lift you up. It will also make you cry. Sometimes you need to do the latter to do the former.

🍉 Please help the children of Gaza. They are being murdered by the governments of Israel on the US.

🏳️‍⚧️ Please donate to Trans Lifeline. And if there is a trans person in your life please tell them how much you love them every day.