Finding Purpose by Recreating Mark Wahlberg’s Daily Routine
Post grad life is hard. I’m graduating with no job lined up, and as I search for purpose in my early 20s, it’s becoming more and more obvious that I need some direction in my life. I’m ripe for a cult, or a multilevel marketing firm, whichever comes first. And since I’m not exactly searching for Jesus, the most likely source of structure in my life is self help TED talks and inspirational bullshit like this. I think a good rule of thumb is to only try routines like this if you actually want to be like the person you’re imitating, and who wouldn’t want to be like Mark Wahlberg? Do you remember when they added him to Transformers as the whole franchise went off the rails? Really the best introduction to Mark Wahlberg I could have had as a youth. I came across this list two years ago back when Deadspin was still kicking, and as much as they shit on it, I really wanted to try it and see what would happen if I undertook it within the constraints of college living.
2:30 am: Wake Up
I didn’t prepare well enough for this, so since I normally go to sleep around 2, I only got a half hour of sleep. Maybe that’s why I need the structure of this plan in the first place. Alas.
2:45 am: Prayer Time
Again, I don’t believe in a higher power, which is kind of how I got it in my head that doing this task would give me a sense of direction. Typically in this situation I would pray to Based God, but the last thing I remember hearing from him is that he was soliciting feet pics from minors on the internet, so I decided to pray to a nondescript, vaguely Christian god instead. Still waiting on results, but my prayers for the deluxe version of Whole Lotta Red may not be at the front of god’s queue, so I’ll give it time.
3:15 am: Breakfast Time
Marky Mark blocks out 25 minutes for breakfast, which is precisely 24 minutes longer than it takes me to toast my Pop Tarts.
3:40-5:15 am: Workout
I live in a college apartment with four other guys, so the closest thing we have to workout equipment is a pull up bar and a singular dumbbell that keeps the door to our laundry room open. I don’t have much upper body strength, so I do three pull up sets alternating with that one starting-the-lawnmower exercise with the dumbbell. I forgot to alternate my hands, though, so maybe now my right arm will look like a tennis player’s. Or someone with a chronic masturbation problem, if that’s more your thing.
6:00 am: Shower
The schedule is a bit ambiguous here, but the showering starts at six, and there’s nothing else on the schedule until 7:30, so I decided to shower for the whole time. Unfortunately, my bathroom has motion sensor lights, and because no one is coming into the bathroom on account of the fact that it’s 6 am, I spent the last hour of this time block showering in the dark. Also, the hot water ran out after 15 minutes. I don’t even know what else to clean, and there’s still 15 minutes left.
7:30: Golf
I don’t have golf clubs in this apartment, and I don’t even know where the nearest golf course is in Ithaca. Also, who plays golf for 30 minutes? The closest thing I have to golf is the Wii Sports version, which required about 10 minutes of digging through various CDs to find, sandwiched right in between a Hot Chelle Rae CD and a bootleg copy of the Incredibles my neighbor made from a Blockbuster rental. The disc was scratched, though, so I spent the remaining 20 minutes taking practice swings with the remote.
8:00: Snack
The snack block of the schedule is an hour and a half long, so maybe the snack was meant to be, like, a hot dog on the turn or something while he golfs? I’m not really sure if I can do another hour and a half of swinging a remote in my living room in complete silence while also choking down a veggie dog, but this day is about doing what Mark Wahlberg would do, not what I would do.
9:30: Cryochamber Recovery
As soon as I saw that he starts his day at 2:30 am, I just knew we were in for a treat, which would inevitably come with some pseudoscience bullshit that’s just the rich person equivalent of Facebook health conspiracies, and luckily I didn’t have to wait until the afternoon to get it. Real cryotherapy involves completely submerging your body in liquid nitrogen, but somehow the amenities in this apartment don’t include access to a cryochamber. To simulate it, I wrapped my body in a blanket and had my roommates dump ice water on me, which ended up feeling more reminiscent of the ALS ice bucket challenge than anything.
10:30 am: Snack
For whatever reason, the only food that comes to mind when someone says “snack” is those Scooby Doo fruit snacks we used to eat as kids. I don’t think that’s what Mark had in mind here, but a boy can dream.
11:00 am: Family Time/Meetings/Work Calls
I’m unemployed, which again, is kind of how I ended up doing this schtick. I also live 600 mile from my family, so to microdose family time, I tell my roommates about how many jobs I applied to today and how I plan on getting started on my LSAT prep sometime soon. They play their part and nod affirmatively.
1:00: Lunch
One time my local Aldi sold Wahlberger sauce and I bought it because any burger sauce that’s orange is destined to hit. That was also the same time I was scraping rock bottom in terms of my mental health and I refuse to see the connection between those two things. I do miss that sauce sometimes, though.
2:00: Meetings/Work Calls
People aren’t exactly lining up to have meetings with me because, again, I’m unemployed. My brain is completely rotted by social media, so rather than doomscrolling Twitter like I normally would around this time of day, I decide to doomscroll LinkedIn. After the third post from a Linkedinfluencer I went to high school with doing their best Jordan Peterson impersonation, I decide to take a crack at it and post my graduation pictures to remind everyone I went to an Ivy League school, just for 10 likes and two “Congratulations Dan!” comments that are clearly auto suggested. My self worth sufficiently destroyed, it’s time for the next part of the day.
3:00: Pick Up Kids From School
So since I obviously don’t have real kids, the next best thing I have on deck is my family in Sims, from a save file that predates the last two presidential administrations. Miraculously, my two children haven’t starved despite going 13 years without any food, love, or attention. The house, however, is a mess, full of rotting food and shoddy decoration, with a fire going on in the corner that I can’t remember how to put out. Honestly, not too far from how I’m currently living, so it really feels like home.
3:30: Snack
This man Mark eats so many god damn snacks, and is really pushing the breadth of my grocery shopping to the limits.
4:00: Workout #2
Last week I skipped stones with my friends for 20 minutes and was legitimately concerned that I was going to need Tommy John surgery afterwards, and this Wii Sports golf situation is no different on my arms. Really the hardest workout of this whole day is the amount of mental gymnastics I’ve had to do to convince myself that this is journalism.
5:30: Dinner/Family Time
One of the most prominent family memories I have is of playing rummy with my grandmother when I was in elementary school for a penny a point. When she inevitably schooled me, because again, I was, like, six, she collected. I decided to recreate this memory by learning to play poker with my roommates, who are all expert players.
7:30: Bedtime
I imagine if my antidepressants get all my neurotransmitters firing in the right direction, this is what my life would look like. What I always find quite remarkable in these types of daily routines is how little work these guys do. There’s less than three hours blocked out for work here. Also, does Mark Wahlberg just have an email account? What’s the level of famous you have to be that it’s all handled by your assistant, and are their spam filters more effective? Is Mark Wahlberg getting emails on the Dominos two for $10 carryout special? This day has left me with far more questions than answers.