If you want to feel like a piece of poo I highly recommend starting your day with one of those ‘5o Ways to Live Your Best Life’ articles. Even better, read it before you have had a coffee and you will legit want to crawl back under the duvet. For. The. Rest. Of. Your. Life.
The fine people here at Thin.Rich.Happy (me) honestly want you to do your darnedest to live the good life and sincerely offer up suggestions on how to be less crap. But, honestly, give me a break – 50 Ways? Do I look like a goddamn superhero to you? Apparently, my BEST life is one where I pray or meditate daily, journal for 10 minutes, fast weekly, face my fear, pay it forward, get enough sleep, consume 30g of protein within 30 minutes of waking, create an automated income source, track my habits, blah, blah, blah………and when exactly – between eliminating caffeine and reflecting on my blessings – do I find time to actually do my job or catch up on my shows (there are so many)?
Not Living Your ‘Best Life?’ Don’t Worry – You Are Not a Loser.
You are doing your best.
For those times in life when you are grappling with perfection and falling far off the mark it is worth remembering that doing just ‘Okay’ is sometimes enough. Bruno Bettleheim, a child psychologist who wrote’A Good Enough Parent’ developed this concept of ‘enough’ after seeing so many stressed out parents who felt like they were failing their children. The overarching message was to chill out and remember that you don’t have to do everything perfectly – ‘good enough’ is in fact enough.
Can I honestly say that I lived my ‘best life’ today? Not even close.
However, the law of diminishing returns states that at a certain point adding more effort will not produce significantly more gains. So some weeks you might be nailing it at work, killing it at the gym or being the goddamn mother of the year. Other days you are simply happy you walked the dog and kept your kids alive.
And. That. Is. Enough.
This GET HAPPIER Post was brought to you by someone who on occasion needs a reminder to take her own advice.
Leah says
THANK you. I’m so tired of hearing “I’m living my best life,” around every corner. Seems a bit pretentious to me. Sometimes things aren’t great or just ok—and that’s just life.
csherston says
I know Leah – it’s great we are all trying to better ourselves but the pressure of ‘living our best life’ gets me down too 🙂 appreciate your feedback