From Ordinary to Dreamy: The Thrill of Romanticizing Life

^{Photo by Nina Uhlikova}

People can easily drown in the monotony of mundane routines, caring more about surviving from one day to another. But that’s where the problem lies. People get too accustomed to riding the flow that they forget about romanticizing life.

“Life moves fast. If you don’t stop and look around, you could miss it.”

If anyone has been on any social media platform these days, they’ve likely encountered related sentiments conveying how life is short. This fact has long been understood and has lately been exacerbated by the pandemic. This view has recently gone around a lot more online, leaving people astonished with how much of it is true.

Some days may feel unnecessarily long and dragging. People may use the statement, “you have your whole life ahead of you,” in hopes of consoling themselves whenever they feel that they’re missing in on life. However, when incorrectly managed, it can happen in a breeze. And the worst thing is that people won’t even realize they’re living life poorly until it’s too late. One moment, people are too preoccupied with suffering from life’s problems. The next, they’re already too old to even care about their surroundings or hygiene, and suddenly they’re regretting not living life to its fullest when they could’ve.

Often, everyone’s too focused on getting their days over that they forget to actively take part in life and be more mindful and present throughout their days. This is how they let their lives slip through their hands.

The Power of Being the Main Character

Isn’t it fun imagining that an individual is a special character people are rooting for rather than a bystander in their lives? This means believing they have everything perfectly laid out before them and all they must do is wait for the right time to receive these. With this mentality, people spend less time being too anxious and calculative about life, wondering if they’re doing the right things and will ever amount to something. Instead, they’ll learn to embrace life and ride its waves.

However, being this “main character” is often too sensationalized and passed on from one platform to another, its meaning getting lost in translation. And more often than not, people use this concept to belittle others, entirely blurring its essence. The Color of Love by Raymond Quattlebaum helps clarify what people intended by this concept. Quattlebaum accents that love is the most powerful emotion everyone should observe, and this love isn’t limited to what one shows others, but most importantly, to oneself.

Values-wise, people are typically taught to demonstrate this love outward toward other people. They’re made to believe the world would be better with people giving love than merely receiving it. Hence, society commonly gears people toward selflessness than romanticizing life and practicing self-love. While it may seem like a foreign idea to unconditionally love and be compassionate with themselves, society gives them countless opportunities to love themselves.

Romanticizing Life to the Fullest

When it comes to romanticizing life, people have different views and definitions of what it entails. How people want to love themselves and demonstrate it in life varies from one person to another. But in its essence, romanticizing life typically means being more mindful and present in their daily routines, making these feel less like chores and more like exciting and fun activities.

By romanticizing life, people become more in touch with their thoughts and emotions, improving their mental health by grounding themselves in the present. This makes them appreciate life more, as mindfulness helps people acknowledge everything good and display gratitude where it’s due. While it differs from person to another, romanticizing life generally means adding pleasure to mundanity.

For starters, here are some ways how:

Set the Day

People can easily get lost in the mundanity of life. As a force of nature, or others may even call it muscle memory, people wake-up at the same time and do the same morning routine mindlessly. Hence, the first step to romanticizing life is introducing a new pattern and changing things. But to make this possible, people must consciously avoid their usual.

They must plan on a new process for their day or incorporate a new step within their routines. This can start by taking a new route going home or stopping somewhere to do something new, restarting their brain away from how it has usually worked. Doing this will not only introduce a recent activity but refresh the body and mind. It can also help people cultivate a new perspective on life, getting inspired by the unique scenery they’re exposed to.

Ditch the Phone

One factor that has forced people to stay locked in a routine is technology. They’ve become too dependent on what these devices can do and the pleasure they get from their features that people have forgotten the genuine fun and entertainment that happens over them. While technology was initially developed primarily to bridge and improve communication and people’s connections, it has instead birthed a massive distance between people.

By ditching the phone or setting time to put it away, people are enforcing or encouraging themselves to find new means of motivation or new sources of happiness. This can be found in making new connections or, as the previous point, participating in new activities.