Do the Fun Resolution: A Beginner’s Guide to Romanticizing Your Life
Written By: Grace Mintun
December 26, 2024
Via UnsplashWhy make New Year’s resolutions all about things that make you sad or beat yourself up or make non-quantifiable goals that you never know if you'll reach, but “you'll know it if you feel it?”
You can make fun New Year’s resolutions too! I read somewhere once:
“Every time I ask people if they do any New Year's resolutions, it's all, ‘Oh, I don’t like making them because I fail’ or ‘Oh no, I couldn’t keep up with that,’ and then they ask me and I tell them about Pasta Quest (I am eating as many different pasta shapes as possible in the space of a year) or when I did Fruit Adventures (every time I saw a fruit I had never eaten before I’d get one and eat it and read the Wikipedia article about it). They’re like hang on, I forgot you can make Fun Ones. I want a fun one.”
Make the fun resolution. Make the resolution to enrich your life and give yourself a goal that does that. Goals are just dreams you gave steps, so break those dreams down into steps, dammit! Do it for the aesthetic, whatever that is for you. If that means getting lost once a week to discover a new adventure, then do that. If that means getting a $5 sketchbook and filling it with a drawing of a flower whenever you see a pretty plant, do that. If you want to get good at makeup like those pretty Pinterest ladies, challenge yourself to try a different color in your eyeshadow palette once a week when you do your makeup. Do the fruit quest.
Resolutions and goals also tie into romanticizing your life. According to Google, “‘Romanticizing your life’ means intentionally viewing and experiencing your everyday life through a more positive, idealized lens, often by adding small moments of beauty, mindfulness, and self-care, essentially "falling in love with your own life" by making it seem more special and meaningful than it might otherwise appear; it can involve practices like creating rituals, appreciating small details, and focusing on the positive aspects of your day-to-day routine.” Our day-to-day life is something that, since we see it every day, is very mundane to us. But then on social media, we see someone else’s life and think that our life isn’t as cool or “aesthetic” as theirs. But their life may be boring to them, and they’re just showing the highlight reel of their favorite moments that they’ve staged. Romanticizing isn’t about comparing your life to other people’s; it’s about finding the beauty in your own life.
“I forgot I can make Fun Ones. I want a fun one.”
Via UnsplashHere are some ways to romanticize your life:
Say out loud, “Wow, so beautiful,” when you see a pretty flower on your drive to work.
Write down three things every day that you find makes life beautiful. For me, today, that would be warm drinks, cute clay figurines, and soft blankets.
Take a deep breath, look around you, and try to find beauty in life. For example, looking outside your window and saying the way the wind blows in the tree leaves is pretty, or when the light hits the bricks on the building just right, they look beautiful.
Compliment yourself with three nice things, or say things to strangers that you like about their looks, like, “Hey, you have rad hair!”
Do the things that brought you joy as a child, like eating fruit and letting it dribble off your chin, jumping up and down in puddles, dancing down the aisles of a grocery store, or building a blanket fort and watching a movie.
Take pictures of pretty things and save them to an album to look at.
Do the cheap DIYs on Pinterest you’ve saved for the past bazillion years.
Explore your city and town and surrounding area to find cool things you may not have discovered before.
Open the window to feel the breeze and hear the birds.
Sing and make jokes to yourself as you cook or clean the house.
Write cute little notes and leave them around the house for yourself.
Pick a bouquet of wildflowers or blow on a dandelion.
Treating yourself with the love and care you wanted as a kid and looking at life through a perspective that you get to make your life beautiful; even the hard things are an adventure, and you’re doing a great job on the journey. Appreciating where you are and what you can do right now. Making your world a better place and trying to make the world a better place for those who come after you through joy and empathy. Saying to yourself, “Tomorrow is going to be a good day,” and believing it.
Use the nice china, drink the fancy coffee, eat the expensive candy, wear the extravagant dress, and do the fun crafts with the stash of “I’ll use these eventually” craft supplies. Life is an occasion in and of itself, and the fact we keep saving our nice items for a not-specified “later date” that “we will know when we see it” is just denying ourselves the happiness that we wanted to experience when we bought or were gifted the item. You are worth using the nice candle.
There are some negative things that could come from this, such as only looking at your life through an idealized lens or feeling disappointed when things don’t turn out the way you plan. It can also be an escape plan or distraction some people use to avoid their lives, problems, and responsibilities. But I think that as long as you do these things just to add them into your routine and see beauty in your life and not the be-all and end-all, you can stay grounded while using this method. It isn’t about how your life looks on the outside to others, it’s about how your life makes you feel intentional and grateful and seek the positives along the way when you can for yourself.
Written by: Grace Mintun
About the Author:
A writer and Twitch streamer dedicated to promoting kindness and breaking down stigma around mental health and disabilities!
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Sources
songofsaraneth on Tumblr
https://francescaspecter.substack.com/p/how-to-romanticise-your-life
Wellness, Self Care
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