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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/10/four-hours-sleep-yoga-dawn-todays-influencers-best-lives
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| Four hours' sleep, yoga at dawn – are today's influencers really living their best lives? | Four hours' sleep, yoga at dawn – are today's influencers really living their best lives? |
| (21 days later) | |
| Are you living your best life? Do you glow with good health? Are you springing out of bed every morning? Are you mindful of every moment? Feeling like each day is truly #blessed? | Are you living your best life? Do you glow with good health? Are you springing out of bed every morning? Are you mindful of every moment? Feeling like each day is truly #blessed? |
| You may feel you are dealing with quite enough questions these days, from “Should I start building a nuclear bunker in the garden?” to “Wait, how long do we have to save the Earth from global warming?” But the question of whether you are living your best life, in which you feel amazing, look amazing, do amazing things and all in a – crucially – photogenic way, has become a modern preoccupation. Facebook and in particular Instagram exist solely so we can demonstrate to our friends that we are living our very best lives, and I believe those apps are quite popular these days. Yesterday I read an article about how getting at least eight hours’ sleep will make me feel my absolute best, only then to read another article about how every successful person wakes up at 5am, and the inherent contradiction gave me insomnia. | You may feel you are dealing with quite enough questions these days, from “Should I start building a nuclear bunker in the garden?” to “Wait, how long do we have to save the Earth from global warming?” But the question of whether you are living your best life, in which you feel amazing, look amazing, do amazing things and all in a – crucially – photogenic way, has become a modern preoccupation. Facebook and in particular Instagram exist solely so we can demonstrate to our friends that we are living our very best lives, and I believe those apps are quite popular these days. Yesterday I read an article about how getting at least eight hours’ sleep will make me feel my absolute best, only then to read another article about how every successful person wakes up at 5am, and the inherent contradiction gave me insomnia. |
| This fascination has led to the rise of what is definitely my new favourite journalism genre: the daily routine diary. Someone describes every minute of their day so that – it is heavily implied – we can learn from them, because nothing helps you live your best life better than living someone else’s. “I wake at 5am and do some shadow yoga for 45 minutes before drinking a cup of tea made from ginger root and mushroom extract, which I make myself in a pewter bowl I bought while trekking in Tibet. I like to drink it while listening to birdsong,” is the general tone. Mark Wahlberg got stick a few months back when he posted his daily routine on Instagram, which involves waking at 2.30am to fit in three hours of prayer and exercise before dawn; an A-list star living the life of a penitent monk. But it was only a slight exaggeration of what these diaries are like, because like most things that are presented as aspirational, they make everyone involved look insane. | This fascination has led to the rise of what is definitely my new favourite journalism genre: the daily routine diary. Someone describes every minute of their day so that – it is heavily implied – we can learn from them, because nothing helps you live your best life better than living someone else’s. “I wake at 5am and do some shadow yoga for 45 minutes before drinking a cup of tea made from ginger root and mushroom extract, which I make myself in a pewter bowl I bought while trekking in Tibet. I like to drink it while listening to birdsong,” is the general tone. Mark Wahlberg got stick a few months back when he posted his daily routine on Instagram, which involves waking at 2.30am to fit in three hours of prayer and exercise before dawn; an A-list star living the life of a penitent monk. But it was only a slight exaggeration of what these diaries are like, because like most things that are presented as aspirational, they make everyone involved look insane. |
| Last month, Business Insider website published the routine diary of a twentysomething HSBC executive called Melania Edwards in California, who turned out to be living such a perfect life that some doubted either she or her life existed at all. Edwards wakes at 5.30am (lazybones) to meditate, play tennis, drink green sludge (“breakfast”) and “catch up with friends across Europe, Asia and the US”. She perhaps pushed it too far with the description of her evenings, in which she takes a course at Stanford, does yoga and works to help women in Papua New Guinea. “In my spare time, I try to give back,” she explained. Sadly for Papua New Guinea, ever since the article was published, Edwards has been forced to spend her free time giving interviews to sceptical publications, in which she plaintively insists that, “I am a real person.” | Last month, Business Insider website published the routine diary of a twentysomething HSBC executive called Melania Edwards in California, who turned out to be living such a perfect life that some doubted either she or her life existed at all. Edwards wakes at 5.30am (lazybones) to meditate, play tennis, drink green sludge (“breakfast”) and “catch up with friends across Europe, Asia and the US”. She perhaps pushed it too far with the description of her evenings, in which she takes a course at Stanford, does yoga and works to help women in Papua New Guinea. “In my spare time, I try to give back,” she explained. Sadly for Papua New Guinea, ever since the article was published, Edwards has been forced to spend her free time giving interviews to sceptical publications, in which she plaintively insists that, “I am a real person.” |
| Melania, I never doubted it. But I did puzzle over who would want to live like her – or any of her fellow daily routine diarists. From fashion blogger Leandra Medine telling the Guardian that she socialises between 5pm and 7pm so as to be in bed by 8.30pm, to Barack Obama’s wild night-time snack of seven almonds, these people may be living their best lives but they never sound like they’re living fun lives. | Melania, I never doubted it. But I did puzzle over who would want to live like her – or any of her fellow daily routine diarists. From fashion blogger Leandra Medine telling the Guardian that she socialises between 5pm and 7pm so as to be in bed by 8.30pm, to Barack Obama’s wild night-time snack of seven almonds, these people may be living their best lives but they never sound like they’re living fun lives. |
| “Maximalising potential” is the aim, although that potential is invariably code for work productivity or exercise. Maximalising one’s potential to lie on the sofa and watch Frasier reruns is, sadly, less advocated. Living life to the full now means exhausting amounts of achievement, asceticism, expensive good health, unstructured jobs and very structured fun. It is a life of outward show as opposed to one of inner contentment. | “Maximalising potential” is the aim, although that potential is invariably code for work productivity or exercise. Maximalising one’s potential to lie on the sofa and watch Frasier reruns is, sadly, less advocated. Living life to the full now means exhausting amounts of achievement, asceticism, expensive good health, unstructured jobs and very structured fun. It is a life of outward show as opposed to one of inner contentment. |
| Drew Barrymore’s bizarre EgyptAir profile reveals the truth about the celebrity media circus | |
| It’s a shame, not least because the greatest routine diaries describe a very different approach – such as Hunter S Thompson’s, in which he wakes at 3pm, and at 6am enjoys champagne, ice-cream and fettuccine alfredo in a hot tub. A 1978 diary shared by the Doctor Who actor Tom Baker begins with him waking in a strange house at 5.15am and ends with him knocking back Valium in a Soho club. | It’s a shame, not least because the greatest routine diaries describe a very different approach – such as Hunter S Thompson’s, in which he wakes at 3pm, and at 6am enjoys champagne, ice-cream and fettuccine alfredo in a hot tub. A 1978 diary shared by the Doctor Who actor Tom Baker begins with him waking in a strange house at 5.15am and ends with him knocking back Valium in a Soho club. |
| We’ve gone from one extreme to the other, which is human nature. But to give all of you something perhaps a little easier to aim for, here is my very own day-in-the-life. | We’ve gone from one extreme to the other, which is human nature. But to give all of you something perhaps a little easier to aim for, here is my very own day-in-the-life. |
| 6.30am Woken up by two toddlers jumping on my head. | 6.30am Woken up by two toddlers jumping on my head. |
| 6.31am Pretend to be asleep while simultaneously staring at my phone. | 6.31am Pretend to be asleep while simultaneously staring at my phone. |
| 7am Get up, give toddlers breakfast, eat half a loaf of bread to wake myself up. | 7am Get up, give toddlers breakfast, eat half a loaf of bread to wake myself up. |
| 7.35–8.45am Wash and dress myself, do the same to one toddler, repeat. | 7.35–8.45am Wash and dress myself, do the same to one toddler, repeat. |
| 8.45am–noon Drop them off at their nursery, drop myself off at my nursery, AKA the office. Stare at the internet. | 8.45am–noon Drop them off at their nursery, drop myself off at my nursery, AKA the office. Stare at the internet. |
| Noon Lunch. Carb load at Pret. | Noon Lunch. Carb load at Pret. |
| 12.30-5pm Stare at internet. | 12.30-5pm Stare at internet. |
| 5.30-8pm Feed, bathe, bed toddlers. Eat the burnt crust from their macaroni cheese for dinner. | 5.30-8pm Feed, bathe, bed toddlers. Eat the burnt crust from their macaroni cheese for dinner. |
| 8-11pm Consider calling my friends. Stare at Netflix instead. Drink wine. | 8-11pm Consider calling my friends. Stare at Netflix instead. Drink wine. |
| 11.30pm Lie awake having a panic attack about the time I forgot a friend’s child’s name in 2013. | 11.30pm Lie awake having a panic attack about the time I forgot a friend’s child’s name in 2013. |
| 1.30am Pass out. | 1.30am Pass out. |
| Live your best life, people. | Live your best life, people. |
| Life and style | Life and style |
| Hadley Freeman's Weekend column | Hadley Freeman's Weekend column |
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