Start romanticizing everything.
6/12/2025
As many of us navigate our 20s, 9–5 jobs, same routine day in and day out, it all begins to feel a bit mundane. When there is nothing new or exciting happening, it is easy to slip into a negative mindset or fall out of love with life. Obviously, it is not realistic to just quit our jobs and start a new life, so, in actuality, what is the cure?
Romanticize the hell out of your life.
I feel as if people often confuse this feeling for needing some kind of change, but romanticizing is much smaller. It’s in a morning walk, making a cup of tea, meeting a friend for a meal, reading a new book, watching your favorite movie. The list can go on forever. It is about finding those little things in life and making them feel much grander to overpower the feelings of lack luster. It’s about finding small pieces of yourself in everyday life, just to add some magic to the everyday.
I find the best way to do this is to take more photos. Coming from someone with 50,000 photos on their phone (yes, it uses all my iPhone storage), taking photos of everything gives you a moment to appreciate what is around you and also something to look back on. Romanticizing your life, for me, goes hand in hand with nostalgia. When you take the time to recognize all the little joys and pleasures in present time, you can reflect more deeply about this time when maybe your life looks completely different.
Look inward at your daily routine. How do your mornings look? Are you excited about your morning cup of coffee, made just the way you like? Or perhaps the sunshine hits a specific spot on your window, casting a small rainbow light on your wall? There are so many feelings of joy you can unlock when you start to seek them. Your life is not comprised of big moments, it is composed of little ones, so we must make the little ones count.
While it may sound so 2019, you have to make yourself feel like the main character, a huge aspect of romanticizing. Every hardship I have in my life, I imagine myself as a character in a film, experience the turbulence of life. Every happy moment the same. Each walk in the morning or after work I take, listening to my favorite songs or diving into a podcast, I see myself as the coming of age main character, strolling along on a self discovery journey, doing small things for herself. Self-centered? Not in the slightest.
Without the art of romanticizing your life, everything would feel very boring, and those are the types of moments that make life worth living.
Next time you feel stuck in a rut of responsibilities and low of free time to dedicate to yourself, stop to smell the flowers outside, play with your pet for just a second during the morning rush, journal your heart out, and document everything. You will never have all of these small moments in your life forever, so it’s time to cherish them now and start romanticizing everything.