I’m selective about control. That’s how I find peace.
Table of Contents
There’s a saying people like to repeat with a tone of quiet authority: how you do anything is how you do everything.
It’s usually delivered as wisdom. Occasionally as a warning. Say it with enough confidence and it sounds like a law of human nature, simple, explanatory, tidy. It reassures people that if you understand one corner of someone, you’ve unlocked the whole floor plan.
I’ve always found it persuasive. And also completely unworkable.
Because if it were true in any literal sense, I would be an extremely confusing person.
There are parts of my life where I’m almost comically particular. Not aspirationally particular. Not curated. Just decided. Settled. Closed for discussion.
For example: I use only linen towels.
Linen towels are not a preference. They’re a conclusion, reached once, supported by evidence, and not accepting follow-up questions.
I buy them. I use them. I replace them when necessary. I take them with me to the gym. I’m aware that this is unusual. I’m also unmoved. Linen towels are best. I decided this once and haven’t revisited the decision.
This isn’t how I do everything. It’s how I do towels.
I use only linen towels because they’re lightweight, 100% linen, better for skin and hair, and unlike terry, they don’t slowly deteriorate into something tired, patchy, and faintly resentful.
Beyond linen towels – overhead lighting
It’s not just my love for linen that illustrates this. There’s also my hatred of overhead lighting.
I won’t tolerate it in my home. Not a little. Not briefly. Not as a compromise. Overhead lighting in New York City apartments gets installed by buildings, not humans, and it shows. It’s unflattering, unforgiving, and manages to make even pleasant rooms feel like places where you’re about to be asked for insurance information.
I don’t negotiate with it. I don’t get used to it. I remove it from the equation entirely. Lamps exist. Lamps are sufficient. The matter is closed.
That’s how I approach lighting, just as linen towels are how I handle drying myself.
Alongside these very specific and borderline unreasonable preferences, I’m also deeply stable. I show up. I keep my word. I don’t flake. I don’t disappear. I don’t create chaos in other people’s lives. I pay attention and I follow through.
These facts coexist without friction.
If how I did anything were truly how I did everything, my entire personality would be a problem.
The saying persists because it gestures at something real. Patterns exist. Energy carries. People do have recognizable ways of moving through the world. It’s comforting and even powerful to believe there’s an easy answer to human nature.
But the trouble begins when we confuse patterns with principles, and coherence with truth.
Human beings aren’t theories. We’re situational. We operate in modes. We’re exacting in some areas and expansive in others. People can care deeply about one small thing – say, linen towels – and be remarkably relaxed about another without apology.
For a long time, I thought this required explanation.
Now I don’t.
When I care about something, I care decisively. I don’t hedge. I don’t revisit the decision endlessly. Linen towels and overhead lighting fall squarely into this category.
I once saw an interview with Barack Obama where he explained that he wore essentially the same thing every day. I rearranged my lamps shortly afterward.
When I don’t care, I don’t pretend to. I let indifference remain exactly what it is.
This isn’t inconsistency. It’s calibration.
What linen towels say about real life and being human
The idea that “how you do anything is how you do everything” assumes that attention, seriousness, and meaning should be evenly distributed across a life. That every preference must signal character. That intensity in one area implies intensity everywhere.
But that’s not how people actually live.
In real life, I can be militant about towels and completely relaxed about things that probably matter more.
I will spend thoughtful time refolding a linen towel so it hangs cleanly over the rack; smooth, flat, no bunched corner, no passive-aggressive drape.
And then I will eat an apple over the sink like a raccoon.
I will insist on lamps and warm bulbs because overhead lighting makes my apartment feel like a dentist’s office that also sells bail bonds.
I’ll reorganize a drawer like I’m staging a museum exhibit, then forget to answer a text for six hours.
I can be exacting about the things that touch my skin and my nervous system — towels, light, sound — and completely improvisational about the rest. Not because I’m inconsistent, but because I’m human.
I live in modes.
This isn’t inconsistency. It’s calibration.
When I care about something, I care decisively. I don’t hedge. I don’t revisit the decision endlessly. Linen towels and overhead lighting fall squarely into this category.
They’re not preferences. They’re policies.
But there are other corners of my life where I don’t need control, and I don’t pretend I do.
If a friend texts me “Want to get dinner?” I don’t need a spreadsheet. I don’t need an agenda. I can meet them at a random place in Brooklyn and order whatever looks good and let the night unfold.
And then I’ll go home and turn on my lamps like I’m landing an aircraft.
This is how it actually works: I choose where I’m particular so I can be relaxed everywhere else.
If I tried to be meticulous about everything, I’d be insufferable and exhausted, and no one could come within ten feet of me without signing a waiver.
What exhausts people is the demand that everything be legible
It’s exhausting when we expect every habit to explain every other habit.
It’s exhausting when someone sees one weirdly specific choice and decides it must be a personality diagnosis.
Sometimes a linen towel is just a linen towel.
Sometimes it’s not “control issues.” It’s just that terry towels feel like drying off with a damp cardigan. (Other times there are some issues there – I’m not blind to myself).
Sometimes it’s not “trauma.” Sometimes it’s “I live in New York and I’m trying not to feel like I’m under interrogation in my own living room.”
Sometimes it’s just: I like what I like. I decided. The end.
Unnecessary things: the private settlements
Unnecessary things are a quiet rebellion against the demand to justify yourself.
They’re not performative. They’re not aspirational. They’re not for Pinterest. They’re for you.
Linen towels are unnecessary in the exact way that makes them irresistible.
No one is watching me dry my hair.
No one is grading my shower routine.
There is no prize for choosing flax over cotton.
And yet: every time I use a linen towel, I feel the tiny satisfaction of a life that belongs to me.
The same way I feel when I flip on a lamp and the room warms instead of glaring.
It’s not a personality trait.
It’s a private settlement – a satisfaction too.
My life: linen, lamps, and fewer arguments with myself
The more I allow these kinds of decisions into my life, the quieter everything gets. Not smaller but quieter. Less narration. Less translation. Less internal debate.
This doesn’t make me simpler.
It makes me more exact.
Because I’m not trying to perform coherence anymore.
I’m trying to live in a way that feels settled and my own.
I don’t need my linen towels to mean anything about my reliability. I don’t need my lighting preferences to prove I’m a serious person. They coexist without commentary.
Integrity has more to do with accuracy than uniformity. With letting different parts of yourself operate according to their own logic, without forcing them to justify each other.
These days, I pay attention to the decisions I no longer argue with.
Not the loud choices. The quiet ones.
The ones that keep showing up in your real life when no one is watching. The towel, the lamp, the way you take your coffee, the way you protect your peace.
The life that belongs to you.
Crone Advice from Kflo
Why take advice from me? As a rule, advice is crap – I agree. But as a 55 year old New Yorker, I’ve seen some things. I also promise to give your question thoughtful consideration. It’s juicy stuff to reflect upon after you’ve completely ignored my advice.
How do I get my sister to stop diagnosing me with mental ailments? One day I’m a narcissist and the next it’s borderline personality or dissociative identity. Today she said I have ADHD. She’s a bank teller, not a psychiatrist. What can I say to get her to stop doing this?
You are not alone. Mental health insights blanket social media and seem to show up everywhere in our culture. While it’s great that people care more about mental health, this proliferation of shorthand info doesn’t provide real education. That’s how bank tellers end up diagnosing their sisters. Here’s something you can say to your sister that’s kinder than back off.
I appreciate that you’re paying attention to me, sis. That feels good. On the other hand, it’s confusing when you seem to diagnose me with with mental illnesses. It doesn’t make me feel closer to you. If you’re curious about why I do the things I do, you can ask me and I’ll be honest with you. We can talk about it. I’d love for us to understand each other better.
