anything goes with emma chamberlain - “romanticizing” your life

Episode Date: June 15, 2023

to romanticize is by definition to deal with or describe in an idealized or unrealistic fashion; to make something seem better or more appealing than it really is. today we're talking about making a deliberate, conscious choice to romanticize life. romanticizing life became sort of a social media trend about turning mundane daily moments into magical moments. i think a lot of us feel really disconnected from the simple pleasures of life due to the sort of fast-paced, highly technological reality we live in today. we get into a routine, and certain daily activities and tasks turn into meaningless chunks of our day. romanticizing life won’t solve all of your problems, but i think this philosophy paired with a level of mindfulness and awareness can help those mundane moments in life become a lot more enjoyable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

To romanticize is, by definition, to deal with or describe in an idealized or unrealistic fashion, make something seem better or more appealing than it really is. I think for the most part, we romanticize things without even realizing that we're doing it. Like, for example, we might romanticize what it'd be like to date a certain person, or what it'd be like to get a certain job, or would it be like to get a certain job, or would it be like to go to a certain school, or would it be like to be accepted in a certain friend group, or would it be like to look a certain way? But with all those examples, the romanticizing happens almost subconsciously.

It's not a deliberate choice to romanticize these things. Instead, it's just like an automatic response. There's so much to discuss when it comes to romanticizing things somewhat subconsciously. But we're actually not talking about that today. We're talking about deliberate, conscious romanticizing today, because it's actually become a trend to romanticize your life. And romanticizing your life is

not something that comes naturally, like romanticizing what it'd be like to date your crush. Romanticizing your life is a choice. It's a mindset. It's a lifestyle. Okay. It is something you have to decide to do. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Let's get personal. You know what? Every once in a while, I like making things about me. Okay. Every once in a while. Like having fun with my makeup based on my attitude or picking out an outfit to express how I'm feeling. It's actually pretty common from your morning podcast to your afternoon playlist. You're personalizing your entire day and it only makes sense that you do the same with

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In the all new 2024 Chevy Tracks, you and all your family, all your friends, all your kids, all your pets have all the space and versatility you deserve in need for your next big adventure. With large modern display screens, wireless phone connectivity and affordable pricing, this small SUV is actually kind of a big deal. And with the option to choose between stylish designs like the cool confident active or the ultra sporty RS, you're sure to find that the all new Chevy tracks fits your budget and whatever your style may be. Visit Chevy.com forward slash tracks to learn more. So a while ago actually it became sort of a social media trend to romanticize your life by turning mundane daily moments into magical moments. I've seen some people

pretend that they're the main character in a movie listening to moody music in cute headphones on the subway in New York City, writing in a journal in a park while laying on a picnic blanket, going to the farmers market every Sunday and getting fresh flowers, writing a love note on the mirror with lipstick. But I've also seen some people take a more aesthetic route,

making every meal Instagramable, people take a more aesthetic route, making every meal, Instagrammable, making every outfit cute and put together. Even pajamas, having their makeup drawer be perfectly organized in their skincare cabinet, perfectly organized, and having candles all over their house,

and cute little decor pieces all over their house and cute little decor pieces all over their house. Basically, all of this being a way to make mundane daily moments a little bit more special. When I first discovered this trend, I thought it was good. I was like, this seems healthy. And I even tried to adopt some of these habits into my own personal, private life. For example, I started organizing things a bit more aesthetically in my home. I started taking the time to light a candle before I get in the shower. I started taking the time to light a candle before I get in the shower. I started taking my time doing my skincare routine and my makeup routine to really enjoy

it. I tried listening to music while walking down the street in New York City to feel like the main character in a movie. You know, I started playing around with some of these ideas because I was like, this actually seems fun. And I've really enjoyed participating in this concept of romanticizing life. And I think in a lot of ways, it can be really healthy. I think a lot of us feel really disconnected

from the simple pleasures of life due to the sort of fast-paced, highly technological reality we live in today. And I think this philosophy can inspire us to shift our focus back to more simple activities so that we can make them more enjoyable. For example, your daily commute to work or to school can be a boring, grueling, frustrating experience. It totally can be that. But if you decide that you want to romanticize your daily commute to worker school. You can absolutely do that. By playing the right music, maybe making yourself a special coffee drink in the morning to bring on the way, there's a way to more habits that you can turn from mundane and boring to enjoyable and romantic in a way, the better, right? I personally love driving

to work. Like I, I mean, obviously I work from home for the most part, but there are quite a few scenarios on a weekly basis where I have to drive somewhere, whether it's to like a photo shoot or it's to a meeting that's in person, and a lot of times I'm driving 30 or more minutes to get to wherever I have to go. And I really make an effort to make that experience fun.

I bring a coffee drink in the car, as I mentioned. I play the best music. I'm singing. The windows are down. You know, it's a total vibe. And then, you know, but I don't even always want to romanticize my life in a way that's fun and happy and whatever. Sometimes I'll turn my commute into sort of an emotional experience that's still romantic.

I'll listen to sad music. I'll let myself cry. But I will say that it's a deliberate choice. Like I make the choice to take these little mundane activities and turn them into something more. This is not something that happens automatically for me. And I assume for a lot of us, we get into a routine and and certain daily activities and tasks just sort of turn into meaningless chunks of our day. And I think through a level of mindfulness and awareness, they can become a lot more. There is a lot about daily life that is tedious and boring. Most of us spend more than half of our day working, learning, doing chores, commuting, but a lot of these things can be turned into much more meaningful moments.

I think overall this trend of romanticizing life really forces us who decide to take on the challenge. To open our third eye and see the beauty in the world again, the real world, not the phone world, you know, but the real world. And I think it's really easy to adopt the mindset that the world is a terrible place and that there's nothing beautiful about it anymore because we're so exposed to constant bad news on social media and on the internet in general. We're just constantly being exposed to bad news, which is somewhat important. Don't get me wrong, but it can also be incredibly harmful too. Because if all you're seeing is bad news and all you're reading is bad news, then you can fall into

a mindset where you believe that there's no hope and there's no beauty in this world. And that's not true. Two things can be true at once. There can be some fucked up shit going on, but there can still be beauty as well. And there's nothing wrong with finding beauty in a world that's fucked up. The world has always been fucked up. I think a lot of us feel guilty about trying to find beauty in the world when it feels like everything's a fucking mess. Well, everything's always been a fucking mess.

And there's nothing wrong with wanting to make your life as beautiful as it can be. Like, there's nothing wrong with that. It's really unhealthy to perceive the world in any sort of extreme way. It's really unhealthy to see the world as a terrible dark ugly place, in any sort of extreme way. It's really unhealthy to see the world as a terrible, dark, ugly place,

but it's also really unhealthy to see the world as this perfect, healthy, happy, there's nothing wrong, nothing will ever go wrong type of place. The key is to find a middle ground where you have a level of awareness while simultaneously taking a step back and Finding the beauty in the real world in reality that's right in front of you. Don't get me wrong. I really enjoy the concept of romanticizing life. I'm into it, but I also have my

doubts and my reservations, okay, because nothing is perfect. No ideology, no philosophy is perfect. There's always flaws and loopholes and exceptions, and I must discuss the flaws in romanticizing your life. Where it can go wrong. So here's the first potential flaw with romanticizing your life. I think some people decide that they're going to adopt this philosophy.

And on accident, they end up only romanticizing their life through the lens of their camera. Because again, this is a social media trend. This is something that picked up steam on social media. People were making TikToks and YouTube videos and Instagram Reels and Instagram photo dumps about romanticizing their life but were they really romanticizing their life or were they romanticizing their social media profiles and their online presence. Do you see what I'm saying? If you're only romanticizing your life for the internet, then you aren't truly getting the most out of this idea, out of this concept. The whole point is to step back into reality, the real world that you can touch and feel,

and to find the beauty in it again. And listen, there's nothing wrong with pulling out your phone or pulling out your camera and documenting how you personally romanticize your life so that you can hopefully inspire others to do the same. There's nothing wrong with that, but I do think that anytime the internet in social media is involved issues arise, okay?

Social media can inspire us to do things for the sake of our online presence that we wouldn't do in our real lives. And I think when it comes to romanticizing your life, this should be something that you do for you. You should be doing this for you, for your own joy, for your own happiness, for your own fulfillment, not for the sake of your Instagram, or your TikTok, or your YouTube, or whatever. I really think the whole point of this concept should be to disconnect completely from the internet

and make real life feel romantic in the time when we're so sucked into the internet that we no longer see the beauty in the real world. I feel like that's the core idea. And so it's kind of ironic that it's become an internet trend because I feel like the whole point should be that it helps reconnect you to reality. But then I also understand people wanting to document themselves doing this to hopefully inspire other people. And I think that that's great. But do you see what I'm saying here? It's like, I think there are gonna be people out there

who get carried away and end up just doing this to look a certain way on social media. I think the key question you should ask yourself if you wanna document romanticizing your life is am I doing this for just the camera or am I doing this for me? Would I be doing this for just the camera or am I doing this for me? Would I be doing this anyway? Because if your actions are rooted in the desire to look a certain way on the internet,

you will not find fulfillment there. You will not find joy there. You'll find a weird sense of emptiness. I also think that some who decide to romanticize their life may end up putting too much pressure on themselves to have a picture perfect, happy, fulfilling romantic life all the time. The truth is, it does take extra energy to romanticize your daily life. It's a deliberate choice that we make that takes a decent amount of energy to fulfill and to do. And let's be honest, we don't always have time and we don't always have energy.

I think if you fall into a routine where you're looking at romantic moments in your life as a success and boring mundane shitty moments in your life as a failure, then you're doing this all wrong once again because this is supposed to be something that brings joy and happiness to your life. because this is supposed to be something that brings joy and happiness to your life. We don't always have the energy to put on cute pajamas

before bed or do our full skincare routine with a candlelight before bed or journaling the park on the weekend. We don't always have time to do that and we don't always have energy to do that. And we don't always have energy to do that. And that's okay. That is completely okay too. But unfortunately, I think a lot of us tend to adopt this sort of philosophy and then live by it as though it's Bible. Okay, I have to live like this. and then live by it as though it's Bible. Okay, I have to live like this.

No exceptions. I have to be romanticizing my life. 24, seven, no exceptions. I'm diving into this mindset headfirst, and I'm gonna commit, and I'm gonna have discipline, and I'm gonna force myself to live like this all the time. I'm gonna turn my life around and change it completely and I'm gonna make this my reality 24-7. That I think does more harm than good because you're gonna end up disappointed, exhausted,

and pissed off. There are gonna be times when you're anxious, you're depressed, you're heartbroken, when it is out of the question to romanticize your life. It's just not gonna happen, it's just not gonna happen. And there's nothing wrong with those moments. Those moments are so important, so important. It's not a failure to go six months

without romanticizing your life, okay? It's not, it's almost something that you should do whenever you have time for it. It's something you should keep in the back of your head for when you have the energy to participate. It's not this Bible that you must live by. Okay, moving on to another flaw. I think some people can misinterpret the core values of this philosophy and can sort of misread what the point is

and can think it's all about aesthetics. You know, how everything looks, which then turns this into something that's more materialistic, which I think is not the right idea. It can quickly turn into the race to have the most aesthetically pleasing items in your home, in your car, on your desk at work or school, instead of being about making it feel romantic

in whatever way it feels right to you. I think a good example of this is people thinking, okay, I want to romanticize my makeup routine. So I need to go out and buy all new makeup. No, that's not how that works. It's going into your makeup drawer and organizing it. And then finding a candle in your house somewhere and putting it on your vanity where you get ready and lighting it while you do your makeup and listening to soft jazz early in the morning. You know, it's that. It's not about having the newest makeup to do your makeup. It's about the experience. It's not about the material items in the experience. It's about the experience itself. Another example would be feeling like you need to have the cutest, most aesthetic pair of headphones to wear when you're walking around listening to music,

feeling like the main character. Again, missing the point. Like you don't need to go out and buy a new aesthetically pleasing pair of headphones. Grab the first one you can find. Grab your one and only pair. You don't, it doesn't matter. Again, that's not the point. Or being like, oh, I wanna romanticize my bedtime routine. I need to buy silk PJs that look really pretty, but oh, you know, no, again, it's not about

having an expensive pair of silk pajamas. It's not about the material items. It's about how it makes you feel. It's about the experience itself, and it can look different for everyone. For some people, sure, romanticizing life might include a new pair of silk pajamas, sure. But it's not required.

And I think that's a misconception about this whole philosophy, is that it requires an investment. That is not the case. If anything, I think it's about being crafty with what you already have. That's what it is. Okay. Another potentially damaging piece of this, is that the concept of romanticizing your

life goes hand in hand with sort of convincing yourself that life is a movie in your the main character. There's been a lot of discussion about these two concepts together and I think they do go hand in hand. And I think to an extent, pretending that you're the main character in a movie can be kind of fun and kind of spicy, like it can kind of spice up life, you know?

Feeling like everyone's watching you and like you're the main character. I don't know, I mean, it can be fun. Sometimes it's kind of like the line is blurred a little bit because I think it can also become delusional and toxic if it's taken to seriously. You don't want to find yourself in a place where you think the world revolves around you. It's fun every once in a while to pretend like it does. To pretend like you're the main character. In the world revolves around you. It's fun every once in a while. But on a day-to-day basis, I don't really think that that's healthy. Because number one, it puts too much focus on you

as an individual, which is delusional in a lot of ways because there are billions of other people on the planet. And it's important to be consistently aware of that fact. Number one, because it makes you a better person in a lot of ways, because it makes you more empathetic to the billions of other people on this planet when you're consistently reminding yourself that there are a lot of other people on this planet when you're consistently reminding yourself that there are a lot of other people on this planet, all living separate experiences from you. But on top of that, when you feel like you're the main character and the world revolves around you, you might

start putting pressure on yourself in ways that are unhealthy because you're so focused on yourself. You see what I mean? It's actually an incredible thing that in life there's no main character. The world revolves around no one. I personally find that to be a beautiful, beautiful thing. It's a relief for me. It is humbling for me. It's just a beautiful thing to me. So don't get me wrong. Pretending you're the main character every once in a while is harmless. And maybe it's even healthy. As long as it's just a little brief moment of playing pretend.

And you still have a grasp on the fact that there are 7 billion people on this planet, and the world does not fucking revolve around you. And last but not least, I think it can be harmful to discover a concept like this, and think that it's going to completely alter our lives for the better and fulfill us for once and for all. I do think that when done properly, romanticizing your life can bring more joy and more happiness and more fulfillment in life. Because, as I've mentioned a hundred times, its core value is rediscovering the beauty in the mundane moments in life. And I'm sorry, but no one can even argue with me.

Of course that will bring more joy and more fulfillment and more happiness to life. But it's also not going to completely remove all pain from life. It's not going to remove all suffering from life. It's not going to remove all challenges in life. It's not going to take away the shitty parts of life. But instead, it's going to make the mundane moments more special. And I think it can be harmful to decide that you want to start romanticizing your life more. And then to be disappointed when it doesn't remove the hard parts of life, I just think

it can be easy to expect too much out of a lifestyle shift or a mindset shift. And that can be harmful because it leads to disappointment and more unhappiness, which again goes against the whole idea. So here's the thing, in conclusion, there's pros and cons to romanticizing your life. There's pros and cons to everything. But I don't think that this is a concept that should be ignored because I think there is a lot of value in it. And I think the healthy balance is to take the pressure off of yourself to romanticize

everything. But to keep this concept in the back of your head and romanticize things when you feel like it, the whole thing should be intuitive. I will say it's something that takes a level of awareness and mindfulness because it doesn't happen automatically. But I think simply keeping it in the back of your head is enough. As long as it's rooted in rediscovering the beauty of everyday life, you can't go wrong. And I think as long as it's remembered that life still comes with suffering, and comes with challenges, you can't go wrong.

That's all I have to say today. Thank you all so much for listening and hanging out. It was my pleasure. If you wanna connect with me, you can follow me on Instagram at Emma Chamberlain. You can follow anything goes on Twitter at AG podcast or on Instagram at anything goes. New episodes of anything goes every Thursday and Sunday. So be sure to tune in if you want. You can check out my coffee company, ChamberlainCoffee.com. Pick

up some coffee, tea, little accessories for your coffee and tea, and you can use code AG15 for a little discount. I truly love and appreciate all of you, and I'm so glad that you came to hang out today, and I hope you have a beautiful rest of your day. But remember, it's okay if it's not romantic, and aesthetic, and perfect. But also, if it is good for you, but if it isn't, that's also okay too.

All right, I'll talk to you guys later. I love you all. This episode is brought to you by the all new 2020 Forest Chevy Tracks. Pack lightly. It's okay if you didn't. In the all new 2020 Forest Chevy Tracks, you and all your family, all your friends,

all your kids, all your friends, all your kids, all your pets have all the space and versatility you deserve in need for your next big adventure. With large modern display screens, wireless phone connectivity and affordable pricing, this small SUV is actually kind of a big deal. And with the option to choose between stylish designs like the cool, confident, active, or the ultra-sporty RS, you're sure to find that the all-new Chevy tracks fits your budget and whatever your style may be. Visit Chevy.com forward slash tracks to learn more. slash tracks to learn more.