Is Romanticizing Life Just an Illusion?

If you watch TikTok or Instagram videos you might have watched famous influencers videos like “Romanticizing my life” or “Being the main character for a day”. In this generation, romanticizing life means making your mundane activities glamorous or attractive or even aesthetic based on the things you love. It is about focusing on the things you love to do and making it look like you’re in a movie.

What does Romanticizing Life mean?

Good romantic movies give us mixed emotions throughout the plot. Directors and producers sometimes delete a scene if they think that scene doesn’t add up with the plot or it doesn’t serve purpose for the whole film. The Director has a story to tell, and every scene leads us to the resolution or climax of the story where the protagonists have a new sense of who they really are. Romanticizing life means appreciating our little acts because it serves us purpose that would lead us to meet our true or better selves.

Romanticizing life doesn’t mean you’ll put a candle in your bathroom to appreciate the silhouette of your body while pouring your bath bomb in your bathtub. It doesn’t mean you have to do yoga, do a skin care routine, buy fancy stuff or wear pretty/aesthetic clothes. It is mainly about falling in love with the little dull scenarios that are happening in your life. It is having an optimistic view of your reality.

Illusion or Escapism?

Illusion means distorted perspective or misinterpretation that comes from a real object. Overly romanticizing life or oneself results from having illusions or deceptive appearance. If a person highly romanticizes his/her life by creating a grandiose sense of self, then it is more likely suggested that the person only wants to be superior and better than everyone else rather than simply celebrating your true self.

As human beings we sometimes get overwhelmed with our reality and we tend to seek distraction, entertainment or engage in fantasies. Escapism is a tendency to detach from unpleasant or boring aspects in life. Does romanticizing life mean you’re escaping from your unpleasant life? My answer is no as long as you're mindful of your own being. As long as your reason for romanticizing is to celebrate and embrace oneself, well it means you’re not escaping at all.

Can Romanticizing Life Lead to Toxic Positivity?

Jacquelyn Johnson defined Toxic positivity as “an obsession with positive thinking. It is the belief that people should put a positive spin on all experiences, even those that are profoundly tragic. Toxic positivity can silence negative emotions, demean grief, and make people feel under pressure to pretend to be happy even when they are struggling.”

Unfortunately, there are people who overlook their tragedy just to prove to themselves they are happy. Some romanticize their pain as if they deserve that pain or they make themselves believe they are doing it for love. Some invalidate their heartbreaks and griefs to show off to their friends they are the happiest. Being obsessed with romanticizing your life and trying to make it look like everything is just fine will definitely lead to toxic positivity. Again, romanticizing life doesn’t mean everything has to be fancy and flawless. It means managing to perceive the good things in your daily life. It’s like admitting what life is like and finding the beauty and strength in it.

Reminders When You’re Trying to Romanticize Life

1. “YOU ARE THE MAIN CHARACTER OF YOUR OWN LIFE”

When people say you only live once, for me it doesn’t make sense maybe because I grew up always thinking of what others think about me. As we grow older, people’s opinions become a crucial part of our decision making. As we become an adult, we become more likely to get stuck with social acceptance. We want to feel we belong with society or a bunch of cool kids to the point where we forget we belong to ourselves. You have your own story. You have your own failure. Own it.

2. Don’t forget the bigger picture

We might enjoy appreciating the little things in our life. Like strolling in a grocery store without buying anything or dating yourself in a Chinese restaurant but let’s utterly not forget the bigger picture or the real goal in life. Being too focused on details can also make you forget the direction you’re going in. Being too focused on a piece of puzzle makes you forget how it’s going to look if you already finished completing the whole puzzle. Appreciating the details of your life is great but appreciating your life as well as a whole is even better.

3. Do It for Yourself

Don’t romanticize your life so that you can post a pretty video on your Instagram or to show off to your friends how fancy your life is. Do it for yourself and for your own well-being. Romanticize your life because you know this is for your own growth and it will strengthen your mindset.

4. Acknowledge Your Unromantic Situations

Try to balance optimism and acknowledging unromantic situations while romanticizing your life. Be reminded that perfection doesn’t exist nor a perfect life. Pain, tragedy, failure or griefs should be validated and embraced. Unromantic situations happen to unimaginably be obliged for the good ones.

Reference:

Johnson, Jacquelyn, “What to know about Toxic Positivity”, Medical News Today, 30 March 2021