Paradoxes of Our Time #1
I’ve come up with a new version of the famous opening sentence of L.P Hartley’s The Go-Between. It goes, ‘The present is a foreign country. They do things ludicrously there.’ Much in the current culture baffles me, not least the following popular sayings.
Be the best you can be/You are enough
We are constantly exhorted to be the best we can be, and we now have an array of devices to help us do just that. Yet I don’t think Plato had Fitbits and LED-lit vanity mirrors in mind when he said ‘the unexamined life is not worth living.’
Despite the superlative ‘best’, the self-improvement project is eternally comparative and has no end in sight. It is always possible to be healthier, thinner, glowier, calmer, cleaner and more fragrant – and that’s just the way the advertisers like it.
Alongside this is the concept of living your best life. Here is what lifenextlevel.com has to say about achieving it: ‘You have to be – your happiness.’ Leaving aside the question of how ‘getting active with your goals’ squares with ‘focusing on the present moment’, it seems a pretty toxic philosophy.
Where is the acceptance that things will not always go your way? Or even any acknowledgement that it’s not all about you? I’d say the fantasy that it’s possible to get all your ducks in a row and achieve a trouble-free existence must make a significant contribution to at least mild depression, aided and abetted by the usual suspect, social media.
Escalation is the name of the game everywhere you turn; a steady state is not an option. You can see this in everything from television programmes (compare the first series of Come Dine With Me with current episodes and you’ll see what I mean) to Christmas (cosmetic advent calendars, pigs in blankets, Christmas elves). That this proliferation is heading in the opposite direction from moves towards sustainable consumption goes without saying.
It pops up in the workplace, too. It’s not enough to turn up, do your job and do it well, in keeping with the notion of a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay. Now you’re expected to have a ‘corporate footprint’ as well, i.e. mentoring colleagues, volunteering in your non-existent spare time, or baking cakes for colleagues – not great for working parents or carers.
So where does all this leave the mantra ‘You are enough’? It turns up in various forms in the writings of Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison and others. Indeed, it’s at the heart of the classic festive film It’s a Wonderful Life. And let’s face it, it’s more often women than men who end up feeling they are not enough.
I wholeheartedly endorse the lament by one commentator whose name escapes me, to the effect that it no longer seemed to be acceptable to grow comfortably into being old and stout and wrinkly – in effect, morphing into Les Dawson in his pinny.
So my new year message to you is, you are enough. Sit down, have a nice cup of tea and a biscuit, and relish that thought, remembering the words of the blessed Oliver Burkeman: ‘The effort to feel happy is often precisely the thing that makes us miserable. And that it is our constant efforts to eliminate the negative – insecurity, uncertainty, failure, or sadness – that is what causes us to feel so insecure, anxious, uncertain, or unhappy.’
Excellent article made me chuckle, I’ll put the kettle and my penny on!
Save a biscuit for me!
Oh so true on every level, Verity.
Ageism is worth a big rant. A future blog?
Pass me my tea and biscuit…
When people complain about the over 50s not being in the workplace, they don’t reckon with the fact that older workers are often made to feel so unwelcome there it’s no wonder thy just give up on the whole enterprise!