On Creating A Lifestyle

All too often we get to feeling that we are wasting time. That we fritter away hour after hour on the unnecessary or the frivilous, while all that we should be doing: all that would improve our lives if we did it, goes undone.
And we are not wrong: we DO waste time. We stare into space and gossip with friends. We tweet ourselves silly and lose precious hours social networking. We pace around shops, flick through magazines, read trashy novels, fill our minds with “news” that is of no consequence to us and waste hour upon hour dithering over a million and one decisions when in most cases relying upon the instinctive would suffice.
We waste time and if we have time to waste then we are entitled to enjoy such luxury. But the truth is most of us don’t. Most of us are walking around feeling somewhat frustrated. Somewhat panicky about all that we are not achieving. About how it can be that all that remains undone still so often stands between us and what we WANT to be doing.
And there it is in a nutshell: we aren’t doing what needs to be doing and more than that we very definitely aren’t doing what we WANT to be doing. It’s outageous and it’s unfair and it’s all our own fault because we are far too busy filling our pretty little heads with a lot of nonsense that just don’t pay rent when it comes to Getting Things Done.
So in must step routine to save the day. Because this m’dears is exactly what routine is for: not to tie you to a life resplendent with the dull stuff, but to make sure that all that needs to be done is done and to guarantee that all that you want to do has it’s very own moment in time carved out for that and for that alone.
In this way we feel as though we are striding towards a future unencumbered by guilt or frustration. Because guilt and frustration are killers. Guilt and frustration give us heavy legs and heavy hearts. Guilt and frustration have us throwing strops at the dinner table and waking up wanting to cry because we know we are about to face another day where we will achieve very little of significance and still fall back into bed that same evening with an ironing basket ready to topple over.
Thus we have to get mad crazy committed to forming and following a routine, no a way of life: Yes, that’s it, we have to get mad crazy bonkers about committing to creating a way of life that helps us tick all the boxes we need to tick to feel as though we are doing more than treading water in the murky waters of domesticity and are actually both thriving and indeed striving towards what some might term a lifestyle.
Ugh. Yuck. Now there’s a word that leaves many a women cold, casting as it seems to aspersions on those of us who are merely muddling through our days without so much as a fleeting thought about the holes we are sporting in last years jeans! But the concept of lifestyle as far as we should be concerned goes way beyond a centre spread in a glossy Sunday supplement and ultimately becomes about the choices we are making in every aspect of our lives and how those choices feed each other to help us create a life we deem worth living.
So yes: we should be throwing every inch of our being into creating a lifestyle. A lifestyle supported by solid routines that speak loud and clear about our priorities. A lifestyle that says to anyone who cares enough to look upon us closely enough: this is me… I’m a vintage kinda girl, (an organic kinda girl/prairie kinda girl/footballers wife) embracing old fashioned values and not just talking the talk, but walking the walk too, living the lavender dream, watching old films, eating simple food and living frugally with all this old pretty. You see once we understand exactly who it is we are, and back that up with images that describe to our soul exactly who it is we want to be, it is easier to put in place routines that help us support our chosen lifestyle. Routines that are flexible enough to allow us to squander time should it be necessary, but simultaneously provide reigns to pull in our natural impulse to waste time on doing all those dilly dally kinda tasks that pay no more than lip service to our way of life.
What does this mean then for those of us ready to commit to a lifestyle of our own scrumptious choosing?
1. It means committing to a routine that allows us to keep housework to the bare minimum.
2. It means carving out time to do the things that matter to us whether it be needlepoint or zumba.
3. It means reducing the noise from outside influences like our Twitter stream to only those voices that reflect and inspire our personal passion.
4. It means putting down the trashy novels in favour of reading that enhances and educates our minds.
5. It means gaining control of our social lives, so playground drop-off doesn’t turn into impromptu coffee when we should be vacuuuming the living room and tending to our lovely sunflowers.
6. It means making shopping choices that reflect our way of life and support our intrinsic values.
7. It means giving up gossiping because gossip is for the idle mind and there isn’t an aspirational lifestyle on the planet enhanced by idle natter. On-line or off it.
8. It means abandoning browsing and accumulation as a way of life and actually doing all that we are pretending to prepare for.
9. It means living the dream instead of just planning for it.
10. And above all else it means creating and maintaining a home that inspires us daily to be who we were always meant to be.
It means my Darlings, putting our sense of “home” above all else for there is no clearer marker, nor indeed reflection of a so called “lifestyle” than the way we choose to live.

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