We take our lives way too seriously.
Here’s me, on an extremely hot September afternoon, obsessing over the fact that I haven’t posted a substack in a while. I am serious about my writing. I am so serious I wrote three books and currently working on my fourth one. I have started slowly but surely making an income out of it, and yet here I am, not writing.
Am I betraying my subscribers? What about the people who paid to be here? I should be writing. All these thoughts spiral in a span of seconds. I am serious about my writing. But I realise that I take my life way too seriously.
What does it matter if I am writing this, in between breaks from work, on my bed instead of the beautiful desk I’ve set up for myself in order to write? What does it matter if I don’t decorate my house for fall, if I don’t look my best today, if I just let my life look like I have given up?
It doesn’t matter to you, but it matters to me. I am writing this on my half-made bed, I desperately need a shower and a cold glass of water, my hair is a mess and it’s all I keep thinking about. I put on my favorite YouTuber. I light a candle. I set out an outfit to wear after showering. I immediately feel better. I visualise my favorite writers, Virginia Wolf, Sylvia Plath, Nora Efron struggling with this. Their writing not being enough. Their words not being considered important enough, because they’re women, and I instantly feel that they would mock my own struggles.
What I really need to get into the mood is a hot cup of tea and a cardigan. But it’s 27 degrees in the end of September and that makes me miserable. But what if it didn’t? What if this is the last time I get to experience warm weather? What if summer wasn’t a given? Because it isn’t. Nothing in this life is guaranteed, not even today. All we have is the present moment. All that matters is that I am here, right now, in this semi-frazzled state, making time for my writing. It doesn’t even matter whether I will finish this essay.
But romanticising my life while writing it, matters. It’s not about an aesthetic. It’s about the feeling. Writing in a messy environment constantly gives my brain signals that I should be doing other things right now, like preparing lunch or cleaning. When you see the Pinterest girl decorate for fall, what you see is a carefully curated ad for products you most likely don’t need but at the same time you see someone who respects themselves enough to take care of their environment and the signals that gives to their brain, and to an extend to other people. Self-care is self-respect but also, it tells your brain to slow down. Because you had the time to take care of yourself and then sit down and do your writing/sketching/reading. Doing everything in a frazzled-I-have-to-finish-this-quickly state gives your brain signals that you have to do more.
And this leads to a number of issues, first one to be burnout.
But how do I romanticise my life when I have so much to do?
By respecting everything you do in your day, even your sleep.
Taking your sweet time to show up at work with a cup of coffee isn’t romanticising your life. It’s inability to plan in advance and it shows disrespect to your colleagues and yourself. Showing up to work a little early, with your favorite coffee is. Because it shows that you took the time to do one thing you love and show up ready for your commitments.
I have this bad habit of engaging in drama on twitter. It’s seriously my worst flaw. I am not someone who will curse whoever disagrees with me but I will try and talk some sense into them and spread some positive we-agree-to-disagree vibe. And if you’ve ever been part of twitter (currently X) community you’ll know, people on there are not there for the positivity. That drains my energy a lot. Because it brings nothing of substance into my life, it only takes time and energy which I could be investing in something that supports the life I want to live, even if that something is playing a video game or sleeping.
Romanticizing your life is more than aesthetic walls and big scarfs with cardigans.
It’s about having the self respect to identify the bullshit that make you feel like your worst self.
Romanticising your life is the only way to sanity
Deep down, you know what you need. What you need is different than what you want, but there is a parallel line that connects the two. Maybe you don’t want to workout, but you will know when you need it. Maybe you don’t want to eat your veggies but you know you need them. Maybe you don’t want to study, but you want the degree. You see how it goes.
It’s not about productivity. It’s about respecting the time you have on earth. It’s about recognising you won’t be here forever and committing to make something good out of this. For yourself, for those around you, and possibly for those that will come after you.
Romanticising your life is knowing each age you’re experiencing is unique and you just got to live it in the best way you can.
Doing the best you can is always hard and never the go-to response. My go-to response is to check social media and engage in a rage fight with whoever disagrees with me. But that’s an ego response. That will bring me nothing but a raging headache and a sense of defeat after I am off my phone, whether I won the argument or not.
Working out will bring me a hell of resistance while I am on it or even while I am thinking about it. Lighting candles and taking time to clean your room sounds mundane and boring, but it’s in the mundane and boring, the moments that no one sees you or forces you to show up for yourself that will bring you the comfort that you are living the life you want.
A pinterest worthy life isn’t one filled with products. It’s one filled with walks with leaves crunching underneath and quiet moments with a cup of coffee and a book in hand on a chill early morning. This is a habit I have developed since my early teens, nurtured in my 20s and carrying in my 30s with the hope that I will continue well into my 80s. The wisdom and knowledge I’ll have gain will be vastly different but the comfort of the feeling will most likely stay the same. And if I will have any regrets, it will be about the moments I didn’t slow down and be in the moment, rather than the moments I spent cleaning my house or grocery shopping, no matter how boring they sound in the moment.
And most likely the silly fights on the social apps that I spent instead of dancing while my feet can.
Change comes in steps
Nothing changes all at once. A baby doesn’t suddenly turn into a functional adult, but the steps taken in between are mostly remembered by our parents. If you currently feel like a baby trying to adult, you don’t start by filling your own taxes and buying a house. You start by doing small things for yourself that prove that you are able to take care of your own matter well enough to help your body produce the feeling we call happiness. But there is no life hack, no mode that you can switch at in order to always function from a place of happiness. You have to keep doing the work. No one said it was easy, but the alternative is just as hard.
So even if you start by making the visionboards, curating the playlists and sniffing the fall candles, you have started somewhere. That’s the frosting of life. And the frosting is just as important as the cake, as long as you don’t flee from your commitment to bake it.
happy last week of September,
xx
Eva
love this . romanticized with a cinnamon bun today. xo
Love this🤍🤍🤍