The Fine Art of Living Well Everyday

You probably noticed last week that the blog had a few small changes from the last time I posted back in December. While I was on a break it gave me time to think of how I wanted to move forward with the blog and its content that I write about, and this is how I came to the idea of The Fine Art of Living Well.  Living well every day is a very intentional pursuit where we live our daily lives on purpose and not by default.  We curate our surroundings, our thoughts, our style and our pursuits in a way that elevates our everyday life to one of joy, pleasure and more ease. It’s in the details of life that makes for a more beautiful experience than simply a monotonous one. Most of our lives are lived in an everyday routine with only a few extraordinary events to punctuate them throughout the year.  Events such as travels, holidays, or birthdays/anniversaries come just a few times a year, but why wait for these special events to be excited about living life? Why not purposefully live well each and every day? Read on to discover some ideas to discover the fine art of living well every day.

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-You Are What You Consume

One very important element to living well every day is to be mindful as to what we are consuming. This isn’t just about food and drink, this is about the social media we watch, the music we listen to, the television/movies we tune into, the places we go, the conversations we have, the books and/or magazines we read.  Everything we consume in this manner is creating our mindset and the way we move through the world.  Being very intentional on this front can set you up for days of pleasantries and calm when you curate your environment to do so.  Subscribe to those who inspire you, watch things that feel good or gives you new ideas, have conversations that are enlightening and fun, visit beautiful places and be inspired by its surroundings, and read things that interest you or you at least have a curiosity for. Let what you consume everyday bring you lightness to live well every day.

-Make personal time sacred

For most of us there are so many things that demands our time and attention.  Work, spouses, kids, pets, chores, social meetups, doctor’s appointments and so much more.  We often give this time and effort freely to others, so be sure to also give it to yourself too. Alone time gives us the opportunity to move at our own speed and to be present with ourselves. This may not look the same every day, but you should make some time for just yourself as much as possible. And the more time, the better. Prioritize having a set time each day to cozy up to something that you like to do as a way of counterbalancing all of the obligations that you completed. Don’t simply just wait for the weekend either, make time every single day to enjoy life’s simple pleasures.

-Cultivate your own unique simple pleasures

If you’ve ever seen the movie Amelie, then you may remember that throughout the movie there were little scenes for some of the characters that introduced them not only by name, but also by their simple pleasures. For example, for Amelie her simple pleasures were cracking the top of a creme brulee, putting her hand in a sack of grains and skipping stones. If there was a movie that starred you and your introduction was simply your favorite simple pleasures, what would that introduction be? If a narrator stated in your life’s movie “she cultivates a taste for small pleasures such as…” what would be their next lines? Mine would be: drinking a hot coffee while listening to jazz music first thing in the morning at the office, the soft feeling of her favorite cashmere sweaters throughout the day, the joy of turning the pages while she’s reading a book, the deep, exquisite taste of a piece of dark chocolate as it melts in the mouth. Make it a fun a game and even narrate your simple pleasures in your own mind or journal about them.  It is these small treasures that enhances our days to live well. Here’s the scene from Amelie to inspire you to get started.

-To live well one must dine well

While most of us work a full-time job I understand that some night’s dinners are going to be whatever you can put together in the quickest way (I have done this many times myself). But when I was watching Rick Stein’s Hidden France series he stated in one of the episodes, “for the French, food isn’t a part of life, it is life itself.” This resonated with me especially because in the United States we are swayed to cook mostly prepared packaged foods instead of cooking fresh made meals. While in a modern-day sense its not’s always feasible to prepare a meal from scratch every night when working a full-time job, but it should be done as much as possible to keep us healthy as well as to derive pleasure from the more natural foods we eat. Learn more from those who inspire us to eat better food such as Ina Garten, Nigel Slater, Rick Stein, or Julia Child to name a few. There is a pleasure to food that is unlike any other and eating well on a regular basis is a true component of living well every day.

-Appreciate beauty

While the concept of beauty is subjective, take the time to cultivate an appreciation for those things that you find to be beautiful. Visit the places that ignites that delightful feeling of being in an environment that make you feel most inspired.  Wear things that you find beautiful on yourself and accessorize to complete a look that is uniquely you. Plate your meals in a beautiful, pleasing way. Bring home flowers to have a piece of natural beauty to greet you every day as you come and go from your home. Find an artist, a painting, or even an era of art that you find stunning and learn more about it. Appreciate architecture, gardens, interior design, table settings, perfumes, languages, books, films and so much more. To take the time out of life to appreciate beauty that was either natural or created is to create neuro pathways in the brain to be on the lookout for even more beauty that surrounds us.  It invites us to appreciate something that is elevated beyond its utilitarian use and to luxuriate in the pleasing beauty that it provides to elevate an everyday moment in life.

-Hold routines and rituals dear and make them a part of your daily life

Whether it’s a routine of drinking coffee in the morning or a ritual of lighting your favorite scented candle and taking a hot bath to relax, create routines and rituals in your daily life and hold them dear so as to not let them go when life gets busy. These are the moments that are set aside for you to take care of yourself, whether physically by giving yourself a facial, working out or visiting a sauna, or even mentally by reading a cozy book before bed, enjoying a piece of dark chocolate after dinner or coloring while jazz music plays in the background.  Taking the time to not only create these routines and rituals for ourselves, but to also show up for them on a regular basis is taking the time to live well in our everyday lives. While nowadays it’s tempting to just sit at home and nondescriptly look at our phones for hours on end, instead create a better use of your time by having these rituals in place each day.  Try some new things to find what you love and live better everyday by making an effort to do the things that nourishes you in a better way.