At sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen, I was deceived by the myth of ready-made lists: 'Do this before 6 AM to be successful,' 'Ten habits to make you a perfect girl,' 'Do this to outperform everyone around you.'

I treated them as divine commandments. I turned them into a blind ritual, a small religion I practiced on the altar of my ambition, where I was at once the priest, the student, and the sacrificed. I believed that deviating from the script, even by a question, was heresy in the modern sense of happiness.

The pressure was subtle at first, hidden under a cloak of illusory enthusiasm. I used to wake up carrying the burden of becoming the best, sipping warm water with lemon while thinking that my competitors in life had already surpassed me. I practiced yoga, counting the minutes I might have lost if I had been a minute late. Even moments of rest were pre-programmed, as if your soul needed permission to breathe.

Ironically, I succeeded within this system. Yes, I would wake up early, perform my rituals, achieve everything on the list. I was like a foolish merchant paying for goods no one asked for, carrying them in a lost cart towards a market whose location he didn't know, inspired by a blind faith that his arrival would turn his valuable cargo into a treasure.

Then came that inevitable moment, the moment of conscious rebellion. On an ordinary day, as I was preparing the green tea on the list, I asked myself: Why? What's the meaning? What's the purpose of all this organized nonsense? Who decided that success smells of lemon and warm water? And who said that the perfect girl is the one who practices yoga at a quarter to six?

I stopped. Simply, I stopped.

I took two steps back, like a painter looking at their canvas from afar. For the first time, I took my days as they came: slow, incomplete, sometimes lazy, and sometimes surprising. Without competing with time, which is unconquerable, or with others, who are ultimately just mirrors of our anxiety.

I discovered that a life worth living cannot be reduced to a list. And that true routine is born from within you, not something you wear like a disguised costume. Most importantly, the only perfect girl is the one who stops chasing this illusion.

Now, I turn my back on all those tips. And I only listen to my whispers. My life might be less perfect, but for the first time, it resembles me.