Living life your best way…
What does that mean to you, or even me?
We are often advised to live our best lives, but what does that actually mean. There are so many aspects of, complexities to and history attached to each of our individual lives. Deep sigh …. then there is all the advice, books, videos, journals, toolkits and more. As we grow older there is also the “well meaning” advice of others, including our children and others, about how we should live our best lives, in their opinion, that sounds very grumpy old woman, it is partially meant to be but i don’t really mind as I know it comes from a good place…well mostly.
I will own up to having bought many well-being journals over the years. You know the ones, where you write what you were grateful for that day, what good deeds you did, how you are going to make today great/wonderful and improve tomorrow. They get very repetitive, and normally I only last a few days. They work for some people but not for me, but no doubt I will still get one occasionally.
Slight diversion I have kept a ‘diary’ every year since January, 2018, it has proved a cathartic experience. Cathartic is another one of my favourite words, sounds like it is. I keep on telling myself to write to Dawn French as it is her Me You diary, that helped me to keep going. John gave me a copy for Christmas 2017, the entries are short, concise but have chronicled a lot. I have bought one every year since then, another habit I have acquired. I do look back over them. It is sometimes, but not always, a good thing.
But back to the BIG question, what does living your best life actually mean, where do you start finding out, what is your best life versus some else’s, which part of your life do you redecorate, reorder or rearrange or is it all of it? Or do we just take it day by day to live our best life? A 💡 moment, maybe a good place to start would be, what does it mean to me. This provides some focus, or else I will ramble from Lands End to John O’Groats and back again. I am not ignoring anyone else’s views just trying to prune it down, promote thought annd maybe, please, discussion. I should state at this point I have no idea where it will end up.
I came across a Groucho Marx quote which seemed fit one potential aspect of this week’s ramble:
I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it. Groucho Marx
The above quote could, if taken literally, result in no planning just getting up and seeing where life takes you. I often wish I was able to live a contented life this way. Over the last few years one area of my life that I have struggled with is the loss of routine, making the days mean something - don’t take it as deeply as it sounds. I often just procrastinate and end up doing very little.
I have the dogs - they need to be taken out, walked and fed on time. I have stuck to the dinner times of old and to some extent the same cooking routines. I recognise that this is living life in the past, not necessarily the best life for me now. I am no longer working, I don’t have anyone else to plan meals for, I can go where I want without worrying about it boring someone else. I am referring to things like my twitching, birds, not the other kind. I will say I am very, very much an amateur twitcher, but did a little bit excited when I saw a reed bunting the other morning. In a nutshell I can now do what I want, when I want, I can be a selfish grumpy old twitching (both kinds) woman, if that’s what I want to do, or I reinvent myself into a sophisticated woman about town - a 🐖 just flew past window.
What do all the websites, gurus, videos and bits tell us? Having done some research to see how many there are and what they say, I am fairly bewildered, there is a lot of it. Although it is not rocket science and mainly common sense, with a bit of bland marketing often thrown in. Eat well, exercise, do new things, have healthy friendships, look after your finances. Here are a selection, firstly, a fairly cynical look at living your best life by Heather Snowden asking how realistic is it. Secondly, The New York Times has the ‘usual’ common sense advice, but it is more around aging well, rather than living the best life.
The new era tms website details five points which are concise and do make some sense:
Live in the present.
Do things you love
Take care of your mental and physical health
Build/repair meaningful connections
Set healthy boundaries with yourself
But I am not sure I buy into their mantra, often used elsewhere:
Living your best life means becoming the best version of yourself, mentally and physically.
What does that actually mean, who defines your best version of yourself, you or others, they could be very different. Not a discussion for now but I am reminded of Satre and the other. The link is quite a long discussion from Dr.Absher’s philosophy 210 blog.
This provides a good link for me to move to the The School of Life’s more philosophical viewpoint. How we need to accept our imperfections, know our own insanity, accept our idiocy, in other words thinking, understanding and accepting yourself for what/who you are. In other words, to live your best life you need to accept yourself. Something I recognise I need to do myself. Although as I grow older I have more quirks, imperfections and insanity to accept.
I realise all these differing perspectives have their place, and we may each relate to them differently. I see this as a positive, it would be an extremely boring world if we were all the same, thought and acted the same. If we were all the same it could create very long queues of people, trying to live their best lives, with everyone wanting to do the same things.
Another aspect of living my best life is improving the lives of others in the best way I can, by interacting and possibly helping. I can see how smug and patronising that sounds so I will try to explain what I mean. I am not referring to the Coronation Bank Holiday The Big Help Out, which I find incredibly patronising to the millions of people who volunteer their time day in day out - no more rants on that front for now. I enjoy interacting with people, making them laugh, hearing their stories and enjoying their company. I am also very happy to give people lifts wherever they need to go, and do things for people. I get embarrassed when people think they must thank me. I do it because I get a lot back. So for me this is part of living my best life, but I do it my way.
What I have discovered, is no I am probably not yet living my best life, but I am trying. Doing, and boring you all, with my musings and ramblings, is one way I am learning to live my best life, it’s a new skill for me, no I am not a literary genius. I try to smile and say good morning to people but I can be an exceedingly grumpy old woman, but that doesn’t matter. I will do everything in my power to be me, not hurt anybody, try and make people’s lives better where I can. Yes, sometimes I sit in my security blanket, my brown leather chair, with whichever dog decides to join me and procrastinate an afternoon away, but I will be me in the process. I am determined try new things, not too scary, no bungee jumping but maybe art courses and writing workshops outside my comfort zone. I am living my best life my way, but that changes everyday. Nonetheless, I will try to make the most of, and enjoy each of those days, but not beat myself up over the bad and lazy/pointless ones.
I do realise I still haven’t answered the BIG question. What does it all actually mean to live your best life? I understand the bland marketing but I have decided it is more complex and is different for each of us and maybe we each just need to be ourselves.