Brian Dean Williams is sick of seeing life-lists. Here’s why.
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There’s something alluring about these lifestyle lists that I see in my Facebook feed lately:
Ten Things to do Every Single Day In Order to Be Successful. (What have I been not doing that I’m supposed to be doing?)
Four Ways to Know that your Marriage Will Survive (I’ve been doing steps One, Two, and Four, but Three? Seriously? Foot massages??)
Five Ways to Spice Up your Love Life. (Kaa-liiick.).
Six Foods You Thought Were Good For You But May Actually Kill You. (Oh no. Not soy!)
These lifestyle lists are most often accompanied by a photo featuring the knowing half-smile of a (usually white) woman drinking tea and looking contemplatively out the window of an idyllic beachfront mansion. Because, obviously checking off the items on this list leads to That. And That is an indicator of … happiness?
Click, click, and, Click. Raising my hand as a guilty party.
The Good Men Project has many excellent articles that are based on the list format, and in no way do I mean to disrespect the writers who choose this structure. I, too, am guilty as charged— I wrote an article about mindful engagement with technology—using a list. But there’s another part of me that, on reflection, is deeply skeptical of this stream of unsolicited advice. It’s not that the lists are inherently “bad,” just that I think we should temper our expectations of ourselves.
It makes a lot of sense that I, and we, are drawn to this seemingly endless series of lifestyle tips. Our world is increasingly complex. We’re faced with the prospect of a permanently altered climate, ongoing human rights abuses, war in Gaza, and a dizzying series of ethical dilemmas at every step from the grocery store to the gas pump. We are, collectively, facing some unique dilemmas that our ancestors could not have imagined.
But a list? Simple. Easy to understand. A paint-by-numbers formula for what we’re all after: happiness.
I offer these Five Reasons to Disregard Online Lifestyle Lists. And to avoid any accusations of hypocrisy, I encourage you to take up what fits and disregard what doesn’t.
Oversimplification.
Life tends to be more complex than these lists suggest. Yes, getting up and preparing a smoothie, doing yoga, and speaking empathetically with your partner in the morning before you leave for work are healthy things to do. But many of us also have kids, jobs, commuting, and other commitments that make following the ever-growing list of what we “should” be doing very difficult to attain.
Lack of Sociopolitical Context
Many of the steps suggested in these lists involve being a person with privilege. By that, I mean unearned abilities to invest time and money into the activities that are being suggested. This is much more difficult to achieve if you are a person who has constraints like homophobia, racism, or transphobia placed on you.
Shifting Targets
Do we drink coconut water or not? Does it have electrolytes or was that a scam? Soy: good source of protein, or estrogenic threat? I find it nearly impossible to keep track of the various trends and opinions on these topics. We are trying to achieve happiness and wellbeing, but the target keeps moving.
The Gaze: Fuelling Perfectionism
French social theorist Michel Foucault offered a novel analysis of how power exerts itself in the postmodern age. Traditionally, power was exercised top-down, by force. But today, most of us have been trained to internalize oppression. It’s like there is an imaginary collective gaze that is monitoring what we do. And so the dominant ideas of what body shape we’re supposed to have, what kinds of clothing we are to wear, what we are to eat, is often policed by an inner critic who is trying to make us measure up, to be “normal.” My sense is that these lists often give greater ammunition to that inner critic. We try to measure up to these standards that are being set, and when we can’t reach them (because they’re virtually unachievable), we may tell ourselves it’s because we’re not trying hard enough, or that this is yet more evidence that we are failures. So rather than helping us attain a sense of wellbeing, these lists may have the cumulative effect of detracting from our happiness by fuelling greater stress about our inability to measure up.
Consumerism: False Premises for Happiness
Most of these lists involve buying new products or experiences. And while Western society has become highly wealthy in material terms, the amount of stress, anxiety, and depression that we’re experiencing leaves me doubting how happy we actually are. So maybe it’s not a new product or vacation that we need, but a change in our collective perspective.
Who gets to decide what is normal, what is healthy, and what is not? My preference is that you will – in ways that fit your unique set of ethics, hopes, and dreams. And this ongoing stream of lists may help you with that, or it may not.
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Photo credit: Rob and Stephanie Levy/flickr
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