Whatever you do in life is going to take hard work. I am here to say there is no ‘soft life’. There is a new consensus on social media that you can attain a life that has no real challenges. The dictionary online states that ‘soft life’ means a lifestyle of comfort and relaxation with minimal challenges or stress. According to articles the ‘soft life’ is not a rejection of work but simply setting boundaries on how much stress a person is going to permit themselves go under in pursuit of success or money. This attempt to minimise stress is good for ones mental health wise. However aside from this I have an issue with the ‘soft life’ ideal that millenials are selling. A life filled with only ‘enjoyment’ (meaning a having a good time) and dealing with nothing challenging sounds great but in reality how is this possible and what damage are social media influencers who are promoting this lifestyle causing? Are the people being influenced by them aware that most things in life take preparation, work and persistance to attain? Yes by all means project your mental and emotional wellbeing but how are people going to ‘make it’ as it were if they are trying to live this ‘soft life’ and thus not allowing themselves to undertake anything too challenging? There is nothing in life which does not entail some sort of tension.
Life is not a walk in the park.
Take what I do for example. Styling. Be that for the red carpet or for fashion publication. It is no joke work wise. I swim in emails (you have to email press offices and contacts to borrow the pieces you see the celebrities wear on the red carpet or that you see the models dressed in on those editorial pages) and a lot of them come with brands saying no for whatever their reasons are. So you email some more. There are a lot of emails. Then when you finally get the pieces you need per look (imagine working on multiple projects at the same time) there are always the returns at the end of the project. Yes the fun part is the returns. This is the taking the bits back to the various labels, pr companies and brands. If you bump into me with suitcases, I am most likely in the throes of that process. Yes even working in fashion is not a walk in the park. The tear-sheet at the top of this post features an image of actress Nazanin Boniadi as shot by Ruven Afanador. It is my work as an assistant stylist as published on Vogue India. That might sound glorious but it took days of work. I was an assistant stylist to Cheryl Konteh. Over a few days the shoot saw the female cast of Prime Video’s ‘The Rings Of Power’ shot by Afanador and Jason Bell. The final result was images published also by Vogue Spain, GQ Spain and others but it took full days of work.
What is my point?
That life is not easy.
That there is no ‘soft life’.
Don’t buy the ‘soft life’ approach to life. No such thing exists. Ignore the vanilla trend, the one selling you the ideal that you can achieve something worthwhile in this life that takes no real work.
A lot of the people purporting this have had to work incredibly hard to get to where they are now.
Life is 90% of hard graft and 10% glamour. Anything worthwhile takes work. You can make it, just have a plan and keep your eye on the ball. I wish you the best.