Hold to restart.

A hard reset might do you some good.

Until recently, my nightly routine always finished with one sacred ritual. It didn’t matter what kind of evening I’d had, right before I’d switch off my bedside lamp, I’d lacquer my lips with a thick, glossy coat of lip balm. I couldn’t live without it.

In my tweens, it was Maybelline’s Baby Lips. In my teens, a red, battered tube of paw paw cream. Throughout my early twenties, the ol’ faithful Dermal Therapy. And since January, the (incredibly pricey) Tatcha lip mask.

It wasn’t until the other day that I realised I hadn’t completed this, once essential, step in my wind-down regimen in months. Somewhere between moving overseas, unpacking and repacking my backpack, and having to cull my full suite of lotions and potions down to a single sandwich bag courtesy of English airport requirements (I’m looking at you, Stansted) – I forgot I needed it.

Or rather, I realised I didn’t really need it in the first place.

You just had to be there.

My lips aren’t chapped. My world hasn’t fallen apart. And moving forward, I’ll be 32 euros richer, given I won’t be purchasing that spenny little pot of peach jelly ever again.

It’s interesting to see what we can live without once we take space from it.

Naturally, given my move overseas, I’ve been thinking a lot about the natural rearranging that comes with a drastic lifestyle change. The opportunity this provides for us to take stock, spring clean, and if we choose, begin anew. With new eyes, we can suddenly distinguish comfort from clutter. Glitter from dust.

In the absence of the safe, well-trodden routines that we rinse and repeat in a bid for solace, we’re granted the rare luxury of choice. By holding down the volume and lock buttons on our lives simultaneously, we’re given the option to ‘swipe to restart.’ And what a clarifying act that can be.

Just the other week, I was chatting at length with one of my good friends, a fellow Aussie expat, about how moving overseas has granted her a new perspective on the energy she welcomes into her life. It’s completely reshaped how she views friendship.

She told me that being overseas has empowered her with a new set of expectations with which to approach her friendships. Back at home, unwelcome negativity or boundary crossing from friends felt inescapable – appeasing the occasional energy sucking dynamic felt obligatory. But now, with distance giving her both a clean slate and a bird's-eye view of her social patterns, she has a lot more clarity on the kind of people she wants to welcome into her energetic forcefield moving forward.

Hard resetting your life alerts you to the fact that you may be harbouring stagnant energy that’s taking up valuable space. These epiphanies rush in with a force, jolting you awake with the realisation that old habits, friends, jobs, or relationships may have been holding you hostage.

Beyond the chapped lips of it all, becoming newly immersed in the deliciously slow pace of a European lifestyle made me realise I have a mild addiction to productivity. Back in Melbourne, the grindset got me good.

Convinced that staying busy meant being happy, my weeks were tailored within an inch of themselves to ensure every hour was spent productively. Instead of making room for spontaneity, my days were hardwired to optimise my ability to get shit done through repetitive cycles of habit-stacking and rigorous Gcal scheduling. Queue Miss Tate McRae’s hit single, Revolving Door.

Me in an endless loop of ensuring everything I do is aligned for maximum productivity x

Now, fresh off the back of an unforgettable Euro-summer and settled into a city with a widely adopted ‘work-to-live’ attitude, I realise that I was experiencing a kind of Stockholm syndrome to my former routines – routines that left barely any room for me to just be.

In Amsterdam, you’ll find people perched curbside, drenched in sunlight with an orange wine in hand as early as 2 pm on a Tuesday. Instead of rushing off to work after an early morning workout class, people stick around to chat and share stories from the week over a matcha. Lingering summer weather sees the parks dotted with sprawling picnics. In some instances, cafes don’t open their doors until 10 am(!).

Typa shit I’m on.

Meandering slowly through a Sunday flea market, the morning after a big night is pretty much mandatory. Breaking for a cigarette after a long shift is ritualistic. And you best believe the entire city will be taking leave for ADE coming up in late October.

The sheer absence of hustle culture initially had me pondering whether anyone here had jobs. But in reality, this culture reframes how we view pleasure. Not just as a reward for hard work, but as a necessity worth maximising, thus positioning employment as a means to an end. Loving your job is a bonus – but it shouldn’t absorb all your time. The Europeans preach that the essence of life is really found in the fun stuff.

My friend Tess Kent wrote a poignant, highly relatable piece for her Substack ‘Dirty Olive’ (do subscribe!) about how ‘fun’ has become a dirty word. She writes that it’s taken the renaissance of indie sleaze, IDGAF attitudes adopted by celebrities, and the cultural reset that was Brat Summer to realise that the post-COVID, capitalist-informed wave of Clean Girl Aesthetic and Sunday Resets may have zapped the joyful messiness of living.

“Dua Lipa is smoking, Hailey Bieber loves a dirty martini, it’s like the roaring twenties are back and we just DGAF.

…fun is on the way up and pretending to be cool is out. Which begs the question: When was the last time you truly had fun? Think about it.”

– Tess Kent, The Dirty Olive

For me, it’s taken embarking on a gap year in my mid-twenties to recentre fun as an essential pillar of my little life.

The urge to uproot and move to the other side of the world has been bubbling away for a long time. It aligned with my goals to see the world and meet people who would expand my worldview. So far, tick and tick.

What I didn’t expect was that this hard reset would hold up a mirror to the dark corners in which my habits and routines were collecting mothballs. My hard reset evaporated any desire to try and copy and paste my life in Melbourne, and instead nudged me to plunge headfirst into one that magnifies that zingy, heart-pumping, I’m alive feeling.

The potential of a fresh start has given me the power to pause, take stock, and intentionally design the life I want to live moving forward.

Whether it’s leaning into newfound anonymity and taking a new aesthetic for a spin, going on copious new friend dates that push me out of my comfort zone, lining up a little longer than usual to slip into that cosy jazz bar, striking up a chat with a friendly stranger, reading more and scrolling less, cycling through the rain just to chase a pastry I’m craving, or saying ‘no’ to something that would usually elicit a ‘yes,’ – my hard reset hasn’t really been a rebrand, but a much-needed reboot that’s bringing me closer to my next system update.

tomsieplomsie

A post shared by @tomsieplomsie

You don’t need to change everything about yourself. You don’t even need to change everything about your routines. But maybe in shaking up some of the fundamentals, you’ll find you might have been holding yourself back from truly thriving.

Hold to restart and see what happens next.