I tried being a good boy. It didn’t end well.

There was a time I tried really hard to be a good boy.

I woke up early. Ate clean. Meditated. Tracked everything from protein to productivity.
I read the right books. Wrote in the right journals. Said all the right things.
I made a conscious effort to be the stable one. The grounded one. The disciplined one.

And for a while, it worked.

I was productive. Clear-headed. Predictable.
I had routines. I had systems.
I had it together.

But I also stopped feeling things.

Not overnight. Not in some dramatic crash-and-burn kind of way. More like a quiet disappearance. Like the slow dimming of a light that no one notices because it’s happening gradually. Including you.

Until one day, you’re sitting in front of your perfect schedule, your balanced meals, your clean inbox—and you feel absolutely nothing.

Not proud.
Not excited.
Not even tired. Just… gone.

That’s when I realized something I’d been too scared to admit:

I wasn’t alive.
I was just functional.

And being functional isn’t the same as being fulfilled.
Not even close.

We love discipline because it gives us control.
Control makes us feel safe.
But that safety comes at a cost: aliveness.

Because the truth is, if you cut out all your chaos, you also cut out your color.
You remove risk—and with it, emotion. You flatten the highs to avoid the lows. You remove the edges. And eventually, you become a version of yourself that’s easy to manage but hard to recognize.

That’s what happened to me.

And the worst part? Everyone kept congratulating me for it.

That’s when I started experimenting with something I now call organized debauchery.

It sounds like a joke, and maybe that’s part of the point. But the idea is simple:

You create space for chaos.
On purpose.
Strategically.
With intention.

Because the real problem isn’t that we mess up sometimes. It’s that we pretend we never need to.

Organized debauchery is how I started reconnecting to myself. It wasn’t about blowing my life up or going off the deep end. It wasn’t about destruction. It was about integration.

I needed to integrate the parts of me I’d been ignoring in the name of being “good.”
The parts that were wild, unpredictable, curious, hungry, dumb, rebellious, and free.

And I realized: if I don’t make space for those parts, they’ll show up anyway.
But they’ll show up angry. Uninvited.
And they’ll make a mess.

So instead of pretending I could be perfect forever, I started giving myself planned moments of imperfection.

Like opening a bottle of wine at 2pm on a Saturday—and not being afraid I’ll finish it before the sun goes down.

Ordering food like I have guests coming over—then eating all of it alone in my boxers while watching YouTube conspiracy theories I don’t even believe.

Texting someone I probably shouldn’t. Then turning your phone off. Not because i’m ashamed, but because the suspense feels better than the reply ever will.

And guess what..It worked.
Not because it was productive.
But because it reminded me I wasn’t a machine.

And ironically, when I started building in time for rebellion, I became more consistent. Because I wasn’t resenting my own routine anymore.

Now, I live by a few principles that keep me grounded and human. I call them my rules of organized debauchery. They’re not laws. They’re reminders.

🪖 Organized debauchery 101

1. Be bad—but be intentional.
If you’re going to break your rules, don’t do it halfway.
Don’t eat junk because you’re bored. Eat something decadent because you’re alive.
Don’t cancel everything because you feel off. Cancel one thing, then go outside and touch the damn sky.

2. Guilt is a parasite.
It doesn’t change behavior. It just sticks around to rot the memory.
If you’re going to fuck up, own it. Enjoy it. Learn from it. Then move on.
Anything else is just a spiritual hangover.

3. Don’t ruin your life. Just ruin your Tuesday.
Seriously. You don’t need to go on a bender. You just need a release valve.
One weird night. One skipped task. One moment of doing something “wrong.”
That’s enough to keep you human.
Sometimes more than enough.

4. Rebellion without reflection is just running away.
Organized debauchery isn’t about avoidance.
It’s a tool to recalibrate. To feel something real. To reconnect.

And most importantly—

5. Do it before you have to.
Most people wait until they burn out to “take a break.”
They wait until they implode to finally say, “I need space.”
That’s not strength. That’s survival.
Real strength is knowing when to break your own pattern before it breaks you.

Look, I’m not saying this is the answer to everything. But I’ll tell you what it’s done for me:

• It’s helped me feel again.

• Laugh again.

• Fuck up without self-destructing.

• Rest without feeling like I’ve failed.

• Work without hating myself.

• Live with a little more edge—and a little less shame.

There’s nothing noble about being emotionally dead.
There’s nothing enlightened about following the rules all the time.
And there’s nothing healthy about a life that looks perfect but feels like prison.

You don’t need to burn it all down. You just need to leave the door cracked open for the parts of you you’ve been hiding.

Let them speak. Let them play.
Give them time. Give them space.

That’s how you stay alive.

That’s organized debauchery.

And it might just save you.

Until next time,

Benoit.

Overthinking isn’t wisdom. It’s noise.

You don’t need more information. You need a way to make sense of it. That’s what writing does. Not for likes. Not for poetry. But to survive your own mental storm.

If your brain feels like it’s running 400 tabs in the background, you don’t need another productivity hack. You need to start hitting “close.”

Grab a pen. Empty the chaos. See what’s actually in there. Most people are scared to look. That’s why they stay stuck.

PS: Overthink much?

If your brain has 87 tabs open at all times, I made something for you:
👉 The Overthinker’s Cheat Sheet
It’s the strategic way to stop spiraling and start making decisions like someone who has their life together. (Or at least fakes it well.)

Try it. Your future self will thank you.