Live Your Best Life
Last night while listening to the latest MapleNamu podcast, I heard Chris say, “live your best life.” It is a phrase that I have wanted to cover before. I only started noticing people using it as a catchphrase in the last five years, but it has been growing in popularity since the start of the millennium.
“Live your best life” is a modern proverb. It is quite literal. Live life the best way that you can. The phrase encourages you to try new things, take risks, and pursue the things that make you happy.
It is difficult to find the original source, but a lot of places credit Oprah with increasing its popularity. In 2005, she released a book titled, Live Your Best Life. It was a collection of inspirational, empowering, and entertaining stories from O Magazine. Then, in 2010, she hosted an event with the same name.
The mantra, “live your best life”, continued to gain popularity from there. In 2017, Rachel (from the Bachelorette TV program) used the line to suggest that she was over Peter. Finally, in 2018, Cardi B released a song with Chris Brown called, Best Life. In the song, Cardi B talks about her affluent life and the struggles she went through to get there. She is clearly proud and happy with her current life.
If you search “live your best life” online, you will find a lot of websites that offer advice on living a fulfilling life. However, there is also a lot of resistance to the phrase as well. The catchphrase assumes that people have enough leisure time and money to be able to pursue a certain type of lifestyle. Critics say that the phrase is only useful for people with privilege. I generally agree and I think that might be why it has been gaining popularity since 2000. There are so many modern conveniences (internet, social media, AI). More people have the time to chase their dreams. Global wealth has also been increasing (overall). This means that people have the time and means to live their best life.
What does “live your best life” mean to you?
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Reference:
https://medium.com/@ramiamitch/what-it-actually-means-to-live-your-best-life-9060617a969f
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=live+your+best+life&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3
https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/live-your-best-life-meaning/
https://www.bustle.com/p/peter-confronts-rachel-after-the-bachelorette-theres-actual-anger-in-the-air-74695
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/all-of-the-worlds-wealth-in-one-visualization/
https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/big-trend-world-getting-wealthier