Paying for it with tomorrow

You are about to write a check against an account that is not yours. Take one now, and tomorrow you will be extra good: the walk, the water, an early night, the whole thing balanced back out by lunchtime. The payment always falls due in a day you are not standing in. And the person who owes it has not been asked, has not agreed to anything, and is conveniently not in the room to say a word about it.

So ask them. Genuinely, one sentence, before you do anything else. Tomorrow morning, do you want to wake up having done this? Do not think it through, just listen for what comes back. There is usually no hesitation at all. The answer arrives fast and flat and a little tired, because you already know exactly how tomorrow feels about this transaction. You have run it before, many times, and you have been on the receiving end of every single one.

The bargain works because tomorrow is abstract right now and the urge is not. The craving is loud and specific, and tomorrow is a rumor. But that is a trick of distance, not a fact about what things are worth. By morning the rumor turns into a real person with a real head and a real day to get through, and the loud specific thing you did tonight becomes theirs to carry. You are not choosing between now and later. You are choosing who pays.

Here is a cheaper deal. Take the walk, the water and the early night tonight, and simply skip the part you were going to pay for them with. You can have the good tomorrow without the debt. It was never a package. Ask God to hold you steady for the next few minutes, which is honestly all the craving is asking you to outlast anyway. Then go be the person tomorrow was hoping to wake up as. They are not far away. They are you, later tonight, having said no once.