SUNDAY SHIFT 002: Self-knowledge Through Indulgence
A perspective reframe before you clock into the week ahead
Indulgence gets treated like a moral failing. Like enjoying things a little too much means you missed some invisible character building memo. Like pleasure is something you’re supposed to grow out of once you learn to be productive, restrained and socially acceptable at brunch.
But there’s a difference between indulgence that satisfies and indulgence that just fills space.
Surface-level indulgence is reactionary. It’s buying the thing because of the logo, not because you love wearing it. Chasing the trendy reservation because it’s hard to get, not because the food moves you. Collecting experiences for the story you’ll tell instead of how they actually felt. From the outside, it looks like satisfaction but it doesn’t really land. You’re going through the motions but not actually feeling it. It’s giving performative as fuck. And I give that zero stars.
Indulgence rooted in self-knowledge is different. It’s slower. More deliberate. It’s spending on linen sheets because you know you sleep better in them, ordering the same dish for the third time because it genuinely satisfies you, buying fresh flowers weekly not for guests but because you learned they shift your mood. You stop chasing and start selecting. And since it’s grounded in clarity about what actually satisfies you, there’s no guilt, no second-guessing and no performance. You know why you want it. And that knowing makes the experience richer. It’s cheaper than therapy, honestly.
This week’s board sits in that second category—lips caught between gold grills, florals oozing abundance, silhouettes that celebrate form without apology, shells polished to a sheen you want to touch, spaces that command attention sans permission. It’s the kind of luxury that comes from knowing what you want. It’s decadence that doesn’t perform.
So how do you get there? You pay attention. You notice what you’re drawn to without explaining it away. The colors you linger on? The textures you want to touch? The things that feel like too much—and therefore suspiciously honest? That’s your taste telling on you, and that’s useful information.
When you stop moralizing desire, it becomes data. You start noticing patterns. What you return to vs what looks good in theory but feels wrong up close. What you love in small doses vs what you’d drown in. This is how you learn what actually satisfies you, not just what’s supposed to.
And indulgence teaches you boundaries too. You figure out where pleasure tips into noise, where polish starts to feel hollow, and where “more” stops being better. Discernment doesn’t come from pretending you don’t want “the things”—it comes from finding out which things are actually worth wanting.
So here’s what I’m taking into the week: the question of whether I’m indulging because I know what satisfies me, or because I’m just consuming to fill space. Whether I’m being deliberate, or just going through the motions.
Do you know yourself well enough to be deliberate?
If that resonates, take it
If not, that’s cool too
— TANISHA
