How much of all the advice we see to live a better life essentially boils down to – less stress? Carving out time to RELAX. Balance. More relax allows less stress. If we do that, does it work?

I keep wanting to be a less stressed being but every time I have some rare down time – sitting in a cafe with just my baby, lazing in my kitchen with the kids out for the afternoon – I *vaguely* enjoy it but mainly realise I spend the whole time … still stressing. About what? Well, logically, how to enjoy the down time and how to relax. Ie, AM I enjoying this down time? Should I be RELAXING some other way? I should be relaxing some other way shouldn’t I? If I knew what I was doing and was a: ‘Proper Functioning Calm Adult’ I would have this sorted wouldn’t I…

Am I alone with this talent?! The special, wonderful, never ending capacity to worry about everything and all things trivial. Here’s an example list: 

1. Stressing whether this should be a list or a paragraph. Or none of those. Should it just not be? 

2. What to do to RELAX whilst everyone is out and you have a rare two hour break? Ahhh the ultimate: just watch a little bit of TV, settled and comfy on the sofa. Mm. So, to be settled and comfy firstly: clear the sofa, find a blanket, have coffee and snack. Make coffee and toast wheee. Oh geez why does this making coffee and toast take so long?! You’re missing the relax time! But maybe watching TV is the wrong call, that’s not nourishing. You should be in the garden? Napping? Tidying? No stop, just sit down. Oh forgot water. Get water. Oops forgot phone. Get phone. Damnit neeeeed a hairband cannot relax without hairband. Done it. (Then inevitably: sit on sofa, scroll through phone ignoring the TV and not touching anything made myself to be cosy.)

3. Assemble a magazine and a few books in front of you for downtime reading. Read one, constantly thinking should be on another. 

4. Make hot bubble bath. Lie in it and wonder if the lighting is wrong. It doesn’t look right but getting out and back in is not the way of RELAX. Stay in. Is the bath too hot though? Is that BAD for your nervous system? Is this actually damaging lying in the bath?!! Or is too hot good and therefore you need to hurry up and relax before the bath cools down…

So if you too have realised you can’t stop stressing when relaxing – or in the more truly perfect scenario like mine, actually stressing about relaxing – then, well, the answer may not be in having enough down time?! In having life set up just so, with a Instagram-able tidy home, and proper routine … it is, as we could have known all along, really all in the head. To be a less stressed being, there may be no getting around having to address THAT. Or a simpler first step goal, instead of stressing about relaxing, try relaxing about stressing?!

“… and you’ll never work a day in your life.” Beautiful. Poetic in its simplicity. Seriously, how amazing a philosopher must Confucius be that everyone, everywhere, is still throwing around this one-liner with great smugness, THOUSANDS of years later?! 

This inspiration presumably resonates with anyone who has ever toyed with doing ‘something else’ (so by that I think I mean… everyone?). Clever Confucius. Indeed I have also seriously toying with precisely this and, I’m thinking, is that how this is going to pan out then? I will love what I do and be free forever more from the pain of ‘work’?!

Here’s what I’ve already gleaned about the practicality of this noble advice following the initial five seconds it took to digest it.

That step one is just that: the initial five seconds (aka the slight con which is the ease of just reading something). You read it, glow inside and feel buoyed with inspiration. Ahh yes, THAT’S it.  I can escape the drudgery and become the master of my domain and… *know* serenity. I can do. What I love.

Except all of that is the wonder of just living inside your head. This you can do quite proficiently whilst doing anything else.  Laundry? Yes. Commuting. Cooking. Cleaning up baby sick. Sitting in a meeting. Maybe even chairing a meeting. All yes.

So then step two: the reality of actually… Putting. Any. Sh*t. Into. Action.

This is the bit I’d never done before but am now actually trying.  Until now, I’ve had a ‘career’ (the working many days in my life), involving commuting, dinner at my desk and everything.  I only dreamed of the other side.  Now – at home to raise a baby – I am attempting action any time the baby naps (aka picking my split ends, conjuring up a new direction for myself whilst he naps): making cakes and pastries, an adventure in baking, perhaps on the path to having a bakery.  Does this feel like work? The truth is, it is genuinely an exhilarating journey so far and I’ve only just started.  I love exploring options and ideas and allowing myself to conceive of being something else.  Outside of the corporate four walls of an office! And it’s true that doesn’t feel like work. BUT here’s another saying we all should know:

“Nothing is ever as simple as it seems. NOTHING.” As no-one once famously said.

And the lack of simplicity and ease means? Yup, a little of what we know to feel like work.

My thought process had been: I know!  I love making and creating all things baking! Cakes! Eclairs?! Macaroons?! All love. Mm, I’ll just bake my cakes and be a baker and find a market stall and off I’ll go. Bake my way to freedom and happiness. Doing what I love. YEAH?!

And I love sharing stuff and reading other people’s stuff online (aren’t I unique…). I will just publish my musings! Yes! I will write it all down and, voila, I’ll have a blog!

BOTH of the above, I have realised in the short space of time I’ve been trying either, take a lot of work (obviously): planning and learning; trial and error; and tears and self-doubt and stagnating and admin.  I’m not saying I’m going to quit, I’m not saying don’t do it or it can’t be done.  I just mean the day-to-day reality of doing “what you love…” will let drudgery creep back in.

I’ve not been exploring baking all that long but, by throwing myself into it, I’ve already had moments when I’m just fed up of baking another cake.  The pre-heat oven, the mixing, the washing up.

I also just cannot believe how slow it has been to get anywhere near starting a market stall.  I’ve researched the markets near me, I’ve asked lots of questions. You have to find one with free space.  You have to get them to want you. Have a list of recipes. List your locally sourced ingredients.  Are they locally sourced?! Have your kitchen registered, inspected, check your insurance, do safety training.  Get public liability insurance.  Get a table, canopy, awnings. Transport.  Packaging.  Practice recipes.  How much to make? It all really does start to become the ‘work a day in you life‘ vibe even if I am still enjoying it WAY more than the work I used to do.

And the blog? There’s tech stuff and put it in some order stuff and photos and editing and things I don’t yet know yet ‘cos I don’t yet know.

So what happens?

Step three: it can start to feel at least a bit like work OR … by doing ‘what you love‘ you might just (in a less poetic, ergo non-existent inspirational meme way) start to love it a little less.  Because it’s work.  Just a slight counterbalance to any dreams of the other side. Which should also beg the question: would that shift be ok? If it doesn’t quite work, will you effectively have given up the joys of a hobby? How do you feel about that? A bit like starting a romance with a friend – is it worth risking the loss of friendship because there’s love to be gained?

As for my friend, ‘baking’? I still love most of it and I’m far more motivated to plough through the dull than with all the corporate I’ve done before; that can well be worth pursuing. I’m also learning so much along the way that DEFINITELY doesn’t feel like work.

So there is truth in the philosophy – who knew the simplicity of it could be flawed. Albeit it’s a lot less poetic to say: “do what you love and it may not reach a level of never feeling like work but will hopefully feel a bit less like working a day in your life than something you can do and like but don’t reeeeally love quite as much as the thing you love“.

Love is… pre-heat oven. And repeat.