DON'T SAVE YOUR BEST FOR LATER!

Tomorrow never comes, or so the saying goes, so isn't it time we all started to celebrate today, instead, with small acts of self-care and life's little luxuries, asks Yasmina Floyer

- Yasmina Floyer

The other week, a friend commended my 'courage' for wearing nice summer dresses on the school run. I was a little confused; I wasn't exactly dressed for the Met Gala. She confided, she would never be brave enough to wear pretty frocks to school - it was too mundane an event for bright colours, she told me. I was dumbfounded. For one, I told her, they are just my clothes; two, it's the summer, and who knows how many days of sunshine we'll get; and three, who cares what you're wearing anyway?

But, on reflection, I started to understand. I completely get that feeling of something being 'too nice' or 'too special' to have for every day - like birthday cake, or afternoon tea. And I know that having something good to look forward to can be a great motivator when we are trying to reach a particular goal, or complete a task we may not be too keen on. But when it comes to almost everything else, I must admit, I no longer see much point in holding back on the good things in life. So, here I am, making a case for why we should embrace more of the good things now, rather than waiting to enjoy them at some distant time in the future that - let's face it - may never come.

I think the change in my perspective is mainly down to the pandemic. Weddings, holidays, and other plans both big and small that we had been saving up for and looking forward to for months, even years, suddenly evaporated in the face of multiple lockdowns. The drastic disruption to our lives had many of us re-evaluating things, and it got me to thinking: what is the point of denying ourselves joy when something out of our control may take the decision away from us?