In order to help one of one of my friends, who was in need of some serious de-stressing and pointers on how to break an incredibly self-flagellating mind-set, I found myself constantly reminding her that so long as she is eating, sleeping and breathing everything else is optional. She admired my ability to maintain a laissez-faire attitude towards life, but finding it hard to break the habits of a lifetime when it came to giving herself a break, I realised that she needed specific direction to help her to let go of the feeling that she always had to be doing something.
To try and create a formula which would help her to make decisions on how to identify areas where a more relaxed approach might help bring a little tranquillity to her life, I came up with the 'What Would a Hippy Do?' method of tackling stress. It is remarkably simple - in any stress-inducing situation all you need to do is think about how our ancestor hippies would have approached things and follow that course of action yourself. Instead of worrying about work, stressing yourself out with concerns about the daily pressures of life or beating yourself up about spending a day in bed, consider instead the options afforded to you by adopting traditional hippy passtimes. These include:
1. Having a nap
2. Playing with a dog, cat or suitably happy small child
3. Having a snack
4. Dancing in a field (music optional)
5. Going to a gig (don't forget to look for those magic tickets)
6. Following a band on tour
7. Tie-dyeing something
8. Leaving things be
9. Putting four mattresses on the floor and inviting twelve people round to stay indefinitely
10. Assessing every 'necessary' activity according to the 'binary mortality index' e.g 'Will anyone die if I don't send in a gas meter reading?'
It's also important to remember that if you avoid putting things away for long enough, you will probably use them again, thus rendering the process of 'tidying' completely pointless. By following these simple tenets of hippy life, it's possible to regard almost any activity as an unprecedented achievement, making simple tasks like getting out of bed before it gets dark immensely satisfying, but also rendering failure almost impossible. If it worked for a whole generation of flare-wearing, long-haired tree-hugging happy folk then why not recognise its contribution to our society and encourage more peace-loving relaxation?
