Modulated Urgency

I’ve always been a contradiction: this one works.

There’s a phrase that I can’t get out of my head: modulated urgency.

I know, it sounds like it shouldn’t work. Like it’s trying too hard to be smart, but for me? It hits.

It explains how I’ve moved through the world without quite knowing how to explain it.

I’ve never been all one thing. I’m an active-couch potato. I’ll walk/lift/stretch, then happily spend the rest of the day horizontal with Match Me Abroad.

I’m tersely-loquacious, which doesn’t even make grammatical sense, yet somehow is totally accurate (it’s in my Bumble profile. people ask.)

So I guess it’s no surprise I’m drawn to —> modulated urgency.

The idea of moving swiftly yet with care.

With intention.

Of knowing when to push and when to pause and *not* because I’m afraid, but because I’m paying close attention.

If you’ve been here for any time now you know, for me, consistency has always looked a little different.

Consistency is never intensity. To be consistent, I never have to ‘do the thing’ every day, at full force, no exceptions. That’s never been my style or my reality.

I do.

I pause.

I come back.

I lose the thread, find it again and keep going.

That’s still consistency. It’s modulated and it works.

So I guess this is less of a manifesto (I know, because really, do I need another manifesto?) and more of an invitation.

What would it look like to live with modulated urgency?

To move through your days with energy that is never chaotic and calm that isn’t checked out?

To be consistent in a way that’s actually yours: not borrowed, not performative, not forced?

You could try it today. Not by doing everything —>just one thing that matters.
Something you’ve been meaning to get to.
Small enough that you won’t wake up tomorrow and think, “Ugh, why did I overdo it? I never wanna do XXX again.”

Do that one thing.
Then stop.
Really stop.

The voice that says, “Well, while I’m at it…”?
You can ignore it.

Close the laptop. Take off your shoes. Don’t stack more on top.

Let that one thing count.

This is how we build something we want to come back to.
Not by going hard once, but by doing enough that we actually want to do it again.

That’s the point: modulated-urgency.

I don’t know if the phrase will stick for you the way it has for me.

But if you try it on and it feels like home?

It’s yours.