No matter how easy it is to subscribe to the idea of simple living, the practice isn’t always simple. In fact, sometimes it sounds like almost as much work as un-simple living. Saying no to invitations or requests sounds harder than just saying yes and following through.
It takes enormous amounts of hard work to seem effortless. There’s the dancer who can appear to hold in the air for a quarter of a second longer than is strictly decent, as if the rules of gravity don’t quite apply to them as to others; there’s the jazz pianist whose blurred fingers pick the perfect pattern from one end of the keyboard to the other; or the painter who can drop a line on to the canvas which is the very essence of the sitter’s profile, with barely a flick of the wrist.
Ah the life of an interior stylist. It’s not all cushion fluffing and flower arranging you know! There are some serious skillz that need to go down in the world of being a bad-ass interior stylist, and one does wonder sometimes if these are things that can be learned or if they are in our DNA from birth. My handy 10 point checklist should help you work it out.
You have at least 20 arty / fashiony coffee table books, 18 of which have never been read but look really cool on your sideboard.
If two contrasting materials are next to each other then STOP EVERYTHING, cos that shit needs an instagram picture. Concrete and marble? Glass and fur? Wood and metal? ARRGH IT’S BLOWING MY MIND WITH ITS AMAZINGNESS.
You restyle your bookshelves every couple of weeks just so that you can create the flyest #shelfie the world has ever seen.
You have a panic attack if your Cire Trudon scented candle is not burning the right way so that the wax lays flat in one smooth, flat layer (yeah, you know what I’m talking about).
For globetrotting travelers, it’s easy to recognize a spectacular city. They are energetic, diverse destinations intent on preserving local heritage and revitalizing undervalued neighborhoods, and they possess distinct personalities that set them apart from other metropolises. Whether it’s the city you’ve called home for years or one you only just stumbled upon during your travels, the best destinations are intriguing cultural centers that can’t be replicated anywhere else. No city proves this better than Kyoto, Japan, which returned for the second year in a row to the No. 1 spot on Travel + Leisure’s annual World’s Best list.
People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.
Steve Jobs – Apple Worldwide Developers’ Conference, 1997
Readers called it the quintessential Japanese experience, offering visitors everything from history (in the form of spiritual shrines) to notable cuisine (shojin ryori) and encounters with Geisha. Italy’s classic crowd-pleasers, Florence and Rome, once again appear on Top 10 list — as they have for 10 consecutive years. Bangkok, likely bumped from the list in 2014 due to governmental unrest, has returned to the number six spot. Below is the full list of the World’s Best cities in 2015, which is compiled based on reader surveys. For more of Travel + Leisure’s 2015 World’s Best Awards, which cover everything from hotels to airports, click here: www.travelandleisure.com
