Romanticizing Life: Finding Beauty in Every Moment

Romanticizing Life ≠ Perfection

Over my journey of learning how to love myself, I realized that loving life doesn’t mean making every moment feel like a real-life Pinterest photo. That’s just not realistic. With so much social media content in our faces, it’s easy to start believing that a “perfect” life is flashy, expensive, and always aesthetic. But I’ve found, some of my favorite moments are the little ones. Curling up in my bed with the lights off, a candle lit, watching my favorite show. Or driving with my sunroof open. Finding beauty in simple moments is magical and life-changing.

The Art of Romanticizing

• Wear a cute outfit/do your makeup: It’s so simple. But feels so, so good. Even if you’re just going to the grocery store. It’s fun to put on a cute outfit and look your best. All of a sudden the grocery store isn’t a chore, it’s a fashion show. The other day, I put on a cute outfit and did my makeup just to go to therapy. Usually I go in sweats or leggings and a hoodie. But it was way more fun to feel good and confident. Even if I was just going to cry my makeup off and vent for the next hour.

• Make your own main character moment: Don’t wait for perfect moments to find you, make them. Bring a book or computer to the cafe and pretend you’re in Paris. Go for a drive and loudly listen to your favorite music. Lay on a blanket in the park and draw people you see. It could be anything. Anything that makes you feel special. Step away from your phone and enjoy the moment. You can find beauty in everyone and every moment if you look for it.

• Create small rituals for yourself: Light candles when you take baths or showers, figure out a skin care routine for yourself to do in the morning and night, enjoy every second of making coffee in the morning. Little rituals are just a small and simple way to love yourself and take care of yourself. Whenever I wake up, I journal, pull some tarot cards for the day, and eat breakfast. I only just started doing this and it’s had a huge impact on my life. Instead of waking up, grabbing my phone, and scrolling mindlessly for god knows how long, I make time for myself to start my morning right. I feel happier, more energized, and genuinely excited for the day ahead.

• Honor your emotions: What I’ve finally come to realize is that romanticizing life isn’t just about the pretty parts. It’s about finding beauty in every single part of the human experience. Find beauty in feeling deeply. Let yourself cry, let yourself laugh, let yourself yell, let yourself be bored. Everything you feel makes you who you are. And it’s so beautiful. But also learn to acknowledge those emotions and then set them free. Don’t let them define you or ruin your day. Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroscientist, explains that emotions themselves are fleeting. Anger, sadness, excitement, or anxiety all release chemicals in your brain, but those chemicals naturally dissipate within about 90 seconds. After that, if the emotion lingers, it’s because your thoughts are allowing it to stay alive. You replay situations, add meaning, reinforce the feeling, etc. This all keeps that feeling alive in your body. Emotions are like waves. They build up in your brain, but then crash to shore and disappear, if you let them. Lean into joy when you feel it. And honor the bad emotions, but don’t reinforce them in your brain, let them die out.

Learning to Actually Love Yourself

A beautiful event in life is when you learn to love yourself for exactly who you are. So many people find themselves placing boundaries and rules on when they can love themselves. They say, “I’ll feel better about myself when I lose weight”, “I’ll finally be happy if I get this job”, “my life won’t be good until I make more money”, “life will be so much more fun when I get into a relationship”, etc. But why? Why does it have to be that way? There is nothing stopping you from loving yourself in the present moment, except for you. Learn to have no rules and no boundaries, just have pure love for who you are. I used to set these boundaries on myself too, but I realized how miserable it was making me. I started being more spiritual, saying affirmations to myself in the mirror, thinking positive thoughts, and one day I woke up and felt the shift. I wasn’t faking my confidence anymore. I looked in the mirror and loved what I saw. I walked with my head high. I embraced every beautiful second of my day.

The biggest lesson I learned is to never speak to yourself in a way that you wouldn’t to someone else. Be kind. It’s so easy to look in the mirror and pick yourself apart. Or criticize your work too hard. But make your inner voice softer. When you look in the mirror, recognize all the things you love about yourself, not the things you want to change. Fake it at first, if you have to, but soon you’ll only notice the good things. Look at yourself and say “Wow. I’m beautiful”. It’s so easy, but makes such a huge difference. Over time, you’ll start to love the things you once hated because they make you unique. You realize you were made just the way you are for a reason and you are perfect. If you find yourself criticizing your work too hard, remember that there’s so much beauty in the words or art that comes from your own mind. What you may think isn’t good enough, may change someone’s life.

Also, always remember to not cave to societal pressure about who you should be. I’ve found that sometimes I get a little too focused on what other people think. On Instagram and even worse, on TikTok, there’s so much pressure to look and act a certain way. For both men and women. Trends are made about every little thing to make people insecure about the way they look. Trends about the “perfect” nose, the “perfect” legs, the “perfect” stomach, the “perfect” hair, any and every little thing you can think of. But it’s all stupid, honestly. It’s a way to get people to invest more and more money into changing their appearance, while companies, plastic surgeons, and even publications like Vogue, profit off of insecurities. But the conclusion I came to: why would you want to look like everyone else anyway?

Your Life is Happening Right Now, So Make It Beautiful

Treat yourself in this very moment like someone worth loving. Even on days you don’t feel like it. The only kind of love you will ever need is the love that comes from within. You don’t need the perfect house, the perfect boyfriend/girlfriend, or the perfect body to love yourself. You just need to realize that life is so magical. We’re all so lucky to be here in this world and to experience all the beautiful parts of life. Life can be miserable and bleek, if you make it that way. But life can be romantic, poetic, and dripping with beauty if you just start existing and loving. Romanticize every moment. What’s stopping you? Life is too short not to.