We all have different breaking points. Sometimes we bend. Sometimes we break. But I once heard someone say that the key to happiness is creating a life that you don’t need a break from. A life that allows you the luxury of actually enjoying your vacation when you have one, and not worrying about overspending, or getting anxious about all the work that’s waiting for you when you get back home. A life that allows you to live, and not just co-exist. Is that really possible though? Or is it just that, a luxury? A privilege? To curate a life of ease and comfort? Sounds dreamy right?
Just recently, artist, mother and wife, Ciara, took to her socials and posted a breastfeeding selfie with the caption “Soft Life”, sparking online side conversations about what exactly that means, and how it can show up differently in various circumstances, communities, and demographics. A similar theme amongst the responses to the post was that the opportunity to live a “soft life” is born from the privilege of having a considerable amount of support in areas that aren’t always available to lower or middle-class everyday Americans. The NFCC Financial Stress Forecast Center indicated that American families felt their budgets stressed more in the first quarter of 2024, than they have in the last three years, which is why many would argue that soft lives are lived by those who can afford them.
But is having a “soft life” subjective? Because if self-care looks different to all of us, shouldn’t that be the first step to curating your own soft life?
When I was a kid, we lived ten minutes from the bayou. My mom would come home from work every day and go for a walk. Every. Day. I could walk with her or ride my bike behind her if I wanted to, but I knew not to bother her until after she got done with her walk. Once those tennis shoes were tied and she hit play on that Walkman I knew it was “Don’t ask me for nothing for the next 45 minutes” time. And I was cool with that because she made every basketball game, every performance, everything. So the least I could do was give her 45 minutes. She made those 45 minutes HER time, EVERY day, making every day into a habit of prioritizing self-care, no matter how big or small it was.
It can be an extremely hard and daunting task to prioritize self-care when every five minutes it feels like you’re being pulled in a million different directions at once. Bills keep piling up and prayers keep getting longer, and harder. But don’t let the commercialization of self-care fool you with pedicures and fancy vacations because as much as I love both, sometimes I just need a nap. Sometimes I just need to cry. Sometimes I just need to turn my phone off. Sometimes I just need to turn the radio up and blast my favorite song while singing at the top of my lungs and sitting in traffic.
Because guess what? Living a soft life doesn’t mean you have to eliminate the hard stuff. It means you learn how to manage the hard stuff better. You learn how to develop a system that works for YOU, that allows you to prioritize yourself and curate a life of ease in whatever capacity makes sense to your madness.
Trust me, Ciara and Russell might seem to live a fairy tale life on the outside, but on the inside, the only difference between them and us, is that they have rich people problems. So don’t let life harden you. And don’t let the world convince you that your happiness is unattainable. Because sometimes the only thing between us and the soft life we deserve, is the lies we’re so comfortable with telling ourselves.
