Back Roads — Built, Not Born | Post 1
In the summer of 2024, I started experimenting. Journaling, meditation, daily readings — just a few of the things that actually stuck. My mornings began with walks, cold showers, drawing sessions, and pre-caffeine workouts. I had no idea at the time how much I was going to need them.
Finding something I could consistently stick to took time. At its worst, the routine ballooned into an unwieldy two-hour marathon that was impossible to complete around morning responsibilities. I tried condensing it to a quick 15-minute essentials version. Eventually, I found balance.
2025 tested that balance in just about every way it could.
Shoulder surgery.
Cartilage issues in my knee.
A fall at my construction job that cracked a few ribs.
I managed about four or five weeks the entire year without some kind of physical limitation. The invincibility of youth is beginning to wear off, and my perspective is shifting with it.
Without my routine — or what was left of it — I would have felt like living was pointless. Just laying around, zoning out on streaming services, enjoying the buzz of an opioid. I needed something to give me purpose. I’m glad it was already in place before any of that started.
Doing what I could with a sling on my writing arm, I still read and reflected. I had to skip cold showers and cold plunges, but I could still meditate. I missed full-body workouts but stayed consistent with leg and core movements — anything the doctor or physical therapist approved. Those routines pulled me through. They kept me steady when I had nothing else to hold onto.
I built the road in 2024. I just didn’t know I’d need it so badly in 2025.
The Word Nerd and His Dictionary
I keep one dictionary on my desk and one on the nightstand. Old habit that turned into something I can’t shake.
When I discovered etymonline.com — a long-term, human-entered etymology database created by Douglas Harper — I lost hours in it. If this word meant that, then what did that mean? Where did that come from? One word leads to another, leads to another, leads to an hour gone and a page of notes you didn’t plan on taking.
My wife calls me a word nerd. She’s not wrong.
So naturally, when I started thinking seriously about routines, I went to the dictionary first.
Routine — 1670s, from French routine, “usual course of action, beaten path,” from route, “way, path, course.”
Route — c. 1200, from Old French rute, from Latin rupta via — “a road opened by force,” broken or cut through a forest.
A routine is a path you’ve already broken open. You don’t have to fight through the brush every morning. You just walk the road you built.
I built mine in 2024. In 2025, it carried me.
The First Hour
Here’s what my morning looks like when it’s working:
- Early wake-up. I wake naturally between 4 and 5 a.m., with a 5:10 alarm as backup. I love the quiet before everyone else is up. It’s my time.
- Cold shower. I start warm, then go full cold. I stand in it until my breathing levels out and the adrenaline spike settles. Who needs coffee?
- Gratitude practice. Three things — unique things. I don’t allow myself to write my wife, my son, or my dogs. It has to bring up a sincere feeling. The searching is the practice. It trains you to look for silver linings throughout the rest of the day.
- Meditation. Ten to twenty minutes with a guided app, or just silence.
- Daily readings. Daily Dad by Ryan Holiday, to start the day focused on my son. Then a passage from Marcus Aurelius — Gregory Hayes translation — where I read, reflect, and take notes on whatever comes up.
- Journaling. At least one page in my A5 journal. Reflection, brainstorming, talking out a problem, or just clearing the mental clutter. Whatever I’m in the mood for.
That fills about an hour if I’m focused — closer to an hour and a half if I let myself breathe through it. After that, first caffeine of the day, then family and work.
I’m nothing without it. If I skip it, something feels off for the rest of the day. My new baseline is starting centered and grounded, and all of that comes from spending the first hour on myself.
Each piece matters for different reasons, but together they do one thing: they make me feel like I’m starting from a firm foundation, ready for whatever the day brings.
A Road Opened by Force
Marcus Aurelius wrote: “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
Ryan Holiday turned that idea into a book — The Obstacle Is the Way — and it’s one I keep coming back to. The Stoics believed that resistance wasn’t something to be avoided. It was the point. The friction is what builds you.
Think about that Latin root again. Rupta via. A road opened by force. Broken through. Cleared by pushing against Resistance until it gave way.
That’s what 2025 was. A year of obstacles — physical, mental, relentless. And every morning I showed up to my routine anyway, even a stripped-down version of it, I was doing exactly what the Stoics described. I was forcing the road open. I was making the obstacle the way.
The injuries didn’t interrupt the routine. In a strange way, they became the routine. Adapting, showing up, doing what I could with what I had — that was the practice.
I built the road in 2024. In 2025, I learned what it was made of.
What does your morning look like? I’d love to hear what’s working for you in the comments.
This post is part of the Back Roads — Built, Not Born series.
The Deeper Why — Post 2 — Fatherhood, Stoicism, and the reason behind the routine
The 90-Second Rule — Post 3 — Coming Soon — What science says about emotions, and how I use it
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