Make a cup of green tea and take a seat at your desk. Lower your shoulders, breathe in, and release your butt cheeks. Support your lumbar. Bow to your inbox, greeting your suffering, especially that moron Daryl in Accounting. You are welcome here too, you mouth-breathing ape.
Allow your gaze to soften and see each email as a blade of grass. An itchy, asthma-inducing blade that soaks up the light and warmth of your day. Do not try to mow them down. Do not take a Benadryl. Do not accept that invitation for a bullshit committee meeting on asset workflow management at 4:30 p.m. on Friday. Come back to the air entering your nose, recycled and perfumed with the microwaved Chinese leftovers that Janet brought in. Bathe in the buzzing florescence and general shared sense of contempt and apathy.
When replying to email, add in one more person to the chain of suffering to needlessly endure the arising of unnecessary stress. Build an interdependent circle of rage and passive aggressive miscommunication. Inappropriately flirt with Charlotte from the database team, telling her about how your yoga practice has made you more flexible. Asks if she gets what you’re saying. Ask her a third time to ensure she understands.
Focus on your body, noting the sensations that arise, the chafing of the khaki and the ripples of your unkempt shirt. Try to recall a time when you arrived at work with anything but a sense of beige generalized misery. Fascinate about possible decorative accessories for your car. Charlotte could be impressed by an oversized decal of a wild puma—a masculine, virile puma that would not stand for someone eating its lunch out of the refrigerator even though it was clearly marked with your name. Or, in this case, the puma’s name, which would be Geralgo. He would rip open the belly of a transgressor before mounting a lady puma in a mutually satisfying manner, possibly followed by feeding each other romantic Mediterranean finger foods and listening to LeVert albums. Geralgo is both powerful and attuned to the needs of his partners.
Remove your pants, rise from your desk, and assume a karate pose. Release a scream from your belly to awaken the entire floor and fling your stapler at the nearest project manager. Become a wrathful god. Challenge the fax machine to a fight to answer for its history of insults. You are in the circle of email understanding. Namaste. Kiai.