I've been thinking about this post for weeks but not writing it. I apologise fans, if you're out there, in the same way I used to apologise to Esme (my tweenhood journal) when I hadn't written in her for a while. So, very, cringe. From the confines of work I've dreamt daily of the ideal evening ahead - supper, hot bath, hot chocolate on the desk (I don't drink tea) and a blank page on which to fill my ramblings. And then, this would all be followed by an overwhelmingly warm and fuzzy sense of achievement and productivity: I may be poor but my life is rich, as someone wise must have once said. And yet I've come home, hopped in a quick shower, scoured Facebook and The Daily Mail.com and ended up in bed past midnight so that I feel exhausted the next day. So I remain poor in every sense of the word.
Of course, I'm not a total loser. My dream night doesn't always involve me being a Surrey-granny over a young Londoner, but funds and logistics are limiting and I'm easily pleased. What is it that makes it so hard for us all to get down to it? Or at least me? Before television and the internet, downtime was reading a book or sewing or playing cards, you know that hearty, good-for-the-soul, mind-enriching stuff. Now it seems that I'll gladly do mind-numbing activities rather than paint or write. The Gym Revolution that took place in my final year at university has been thoroughly shut down due to the exhausting commute and my justification that walking up escalators is sweat-inducing cardio. Its demise is not for lack of intention, that's for sure; I fully intend to do frantic Oh My Glutes! Youtube videos in my bedroom. Then there's my basket of ironing and the still stacked books from uni, but both unattended piles stare at me with gleeful menace.
I'd never call myself lazy, in fact I'm far from it. I get shit done when it matters and I work hard, and I thoroughly enjoy leaving the house especially if it involves some other people, eating, dancing, and drinking (in that order). I'm reliable, efficient, enthusiastic...god, sorry, for a second I forgot this wasn't my CV. But what I am beginning to think is that none of us is very good at doing 'me-time' - at least in the healthy, nourishing sense. Ironically, I would also say that our society is more selfish than ever, or at least self-conscious. We do things for ourselves, but they're far more valuable if they improve our surface image for others' sake. I've muttered before about social media being somewhat debilitating, and it seems that a lot of the time we're all just trying to keep other people happy and to feel like we fit in. This often means staying well and truly in one's comfort zone and just coasting, rather than pushing yourself to feel above average, be it intellectually, physically or emotionally. With all the pressures of keeping up with friends, getting degrees and then jobs and generally trying to get your life sorted with some direction, it seems to leave little time for anything extra. Everyone is hell-bent on getting through it all, rather than remembering to breathe.
Obviously, seeing friends is enriching and though this article might suggest it, I'm not feeling clinically bleak in the slightest. In fact, life is absolutely fine. But I know a lot of my friends and I feel quite tied in knots over the c word (careers shhhh) and I'm pretty sure we'd all untangle ourselves a bit more if we exercised our right brains from time to time, and in my case my muscles. Admittedly, coasting is more satiating when you're at least getting paid to do it. No one expects their first job to be the bee's knees. However, for pleasure and the things we love to do for free, what's holding us back? If you like writing, then write and if you aren't creative, you can still appreciate creativity and actively seek it out. We need to break up the concrete that starts to seep uncontrollably into our lives as we enter the real world of high rise offices in the big city.
Helen Fielding so deliciously stole my exact thoughts last week when she was quoted in the Evening Standard saying "the challenge I face with writing is overcoming the feeling that I would rather be doing something else, or that I have nothing to say, or would rather spend the whole time eating. It takes discipline, but if we want to succeed as women, we have to put the work in." So instead of opening up the fridge and staring into it, I'm going to set myself some pre-New Year's resolutions. Number one is this blog, number two is to get a job while I'm at it, and number three is to do some bloody exercise. In the apt words of sporting giant Nike, we should all "just do it."
No comments:
Post a Comment