An Honest Day in My Life in Paris

When you go on the internet, what you will often find are people sharing their amazingly exciting, well-structured, well-balanced daily lives. And, well, how do I put this? Oh my god. Good morning. I don't know. I really struggled to make this because that is just not what my life looks like. I'm going to try and really make this a realistic representation of what a day looks like. The problem is every single day is an unpredictable adventure. Oh man, I needed this coffee so badly. Oh my god, this is heaven in a cup right now. I was in denial about this for a long time, but my life revolves around my creative projects. Holy smokes. They often require me to do something different every single day. Oh, hi there. Welcome back to Paris. Today, we're going to look for the best pain au chocolat. And so, this is what a life that revolves around my little artistic endeavors looks like. Man. I cannot talk in the morning. Nobody wants to be filmed in the morning. We all struggle with this. None of us are morning people. That's my mom. My parents are staying here for a couple of days. Oh my god, you're filming that? I have to. I'm showing the day. It's embarrassing. We walk up really late. Yeah. What the fuck are you doing? Night before what? I'm going to have to explain. Why am I waking up at 10 a.m. in the morning? because we go to bed late. I've struggled with this for a long time. It's basically, I'd like to think that I can have, you know, a more normal schedule. But the truth is, I'm at my best when I'm going to bed at like 1 or 2 a.m. and waking up at like 9 or 10 a.m. It is what it is. I think either the pandemic just permanently ruined my sleep schedule or I discovered what works well for me. Doesn't this look like a podcast set up? I mean, come on, people. This is how I roll now. Picasso's daily routine was like a perfect fit. Hello. It is 1223 a.m. as in nighttime. It's your dead plant. Oh yeah. Oh man. Look, I take responsibility for the death of that plant. I'm learning to take care of plants and I'm not particularly good at it. I have a couple that are thriving over there, okay? This one is called Madeleine, named after the Paris metro station I was closest to when I bought it. My mama helped me bring it back to my place. Until I have my coffee... It's like the day doesn't really begin. I can't even think clearly. In terms of consistency in the morning, coffee and meditation. So what's going on now? What are you working on? You're filming me? I'm actually setting up a time lapse to time lapse myself meditating. Okay. That's my life. It's ridiculous saying it out loud. So I need things that help ground me. And that's one of the habits that I picked up over the years that has really stuck. Last time I did this was three years ago in Mexico, and I made it this really polished thing and whatnot. I sleep with a mic apparently. That's realistic. This is a really honest start to this day in the life video. What I'm slowly coming to terms with is the fact that I like playing with what I'm allowed to say or do. I'm an eternal explorer, and there's nothing about the way that I spend my time that I should be embarrassed about. Why the fuck should other people's ideas of how I should spend my time dictate how I live my life. If at this stage it means late mornings and lots of time to think and being a little all over the place, then so be it. I'm collecting stories to tell. I'm gonna take her down to pee. She's doing her business in the most tucked away corner. I'm a student of life. My projects are just an excuse to make art out of whatever it is that I'm currently working through, whether that's dating, the pursuit of happiness, or my spiritual journey. My parents have just moved to France. I helped them. with the moving process because I had gone through it myself. A few months ago I did a video about them moving to Portugal but after spending more time in Europe they realized they connected more with France and so they're here now looking for a home. I spent years living thousands of miles away from my family in different countries and for all of us to be in the same country again what an hour hour and a half away from each other? Yeah. it makes it so bizarrely easy to see each other we're trying to find a new rhythm again we're reconnecting it feels like we've we've been catching up after years of being separated it's been fun why why are you here right now we're here to cook with you we're gonna go get some fresh produce and uh make some lunch so we walked down the sixth flight of stairs just to realize you forgot a scarf he needs a beanie and we need to grab bags to go shopping so i'm gonna run back up now okay we've come to which is one of my favorite streets there's all these wonderful shops different produce berries meat cheeses you know so you can get pretty much anything also it's freezing right now wow look at this I like the caché. You do? Yeah. It's so cute. The truth of the matter is that after going at a very high intensity with so many plates spinning at once for so long, I have realized that I need periods where the rhythm of my life slows down. But this has been very challenging for me because going more slowly is uncomfortable in a world that gives so many short-term rewards for going fast. I wanted to capture some of the chaos that is the day-to-day life here. We're going to make codorniz. The truth is, do we cook together often? No. We don't cook together often. But food was a thing that was a major part of childhood for me growing up. Beautiful buttery scent just wafting up. Let's take a closer look. Really fluffy. Let's dive in. It's extremely valuable for all of us to eat really well. And that's one of the major reasons that you're actually now living in France, right? You feel the quality of food here is incredible. It's like, wow, this is a new life. I get to reinvent our future. Well, we're kind of going to wing it because I don't like following recipes. I get bored. But we bought some cool ingredients, whatever was in season. I'm your sous chef. Yes. In this sometimes rushed way of approaching life, I feel like I get caught up in this idea of making progress. And this is how my mom responded to me when I asked her about it. Everybody wants to make progress in life, but what does progress mean? Sometimes not doing for a while is actually better than doing. And that's something that nobody ever brings up. There's an importance about letting things recharge. and renew it's admirable when people really let the dirt on the ground prepare and not constantly be put seeds to grow more vegetables but letting it sit basically with rotating areas and we do need the same thing we cannot be always outputting, outputting, outputting at all times. And we're praised so much in society for that. And we don't praise for recharging, which is, I think, almost more valuable. Yeah. Provincial herbs. Go for it, go for it. No, no, no, you, you, you. Oh, I'm doing it? Yeah, yeah. And... Oh! And, yeah? Yeah. And a bit of that. Yeah. Oh, I didn't do that side. It's okay, it's okay, it's okay. It needs it. It's okay, we need to... This is a mess. Do we have pepper? Yeah, of course I have pepper. Oh, perfect. In what conditions do you think I live? This stuff inside? Inside? Yeah. All right. Can we redo it? Can I redo it? Sure. Oh, why? What? I did such a bad job. No, I should have seized it. You have to literally redo it? Yeah. This is why we don't cook together. No, because if I'm not doing it, I can't think. Before I go any further into this day of my life, I'd like to briefly talk about the sponsor of this video who have supported many of my creative projects over the years, and that is Skillshare. I do really love how the internet has made so much information so much more accessible. And nowhere is that more apparent than on Skillshare. I know it's a silly thought, but centuries ago, the things that we have access to now were completely inaccessible. And I try really hard not to take that for granted. I want to highlight one class in particular that was recently added and that is really well made and taught by Jacob Collier, who is a Grammy award-winning musician and multi-instrumentalist. And he talks about music like it's a language, which I really like. I mean, that makes a lot of sense to me. And maybe it's because I began dabbling a little bit more into music again this year, and I released the single Frida, which was a really cool experience. So cool to share music with the world But this is a topic that fascinates me and that I'm curious about Jacob takes ideas that I've had about creativity like leaning into the things that you like or Experimentation and applies it in the world of music So if you're interested the first 1000 people to use the link in the description will get a one month free trial of Skillshare Consider checking it out. Thank you Skillshare for sponsoring this video and now let's dive back in We always have fascinating conversations at the dinner table, and I wanted to share a little bit of the one we had here. It's funny to me that this was day in the life of my entire childhood, and then it stopped for most of my adulthood. And now it's kind of normal again. We get to see each other every few weeks now that you've moved here, so that's cool. All right, well, cheers. Cheers. We're finally arriving at some meal today. A lunch that took us seven hours. Let's talk about plans for next year. What are you looking forward to? Because this year was very hard mentally for you. You know, I've come to a realization I'm done putting these ridiculous pressure standards on myself. Why do you think you do that? I think there's this idea that, like, I need to distinguish myself. Time's running out and I'll never have a chance to do these things. And in rushing to try to make things happen, get a book published or whatever. I'm tripping over myself. Yeah. And then the actual thing that I really care about, the quality of the work, the actual journey, it gets lost. And the thing I'm more militant now about than ever is my own time. And this is something I feel I'm witnessing with you guys. One, you're making more conscious decisions about how your time is spent and used. That's how I see you guys as you age. Yeah. It's more about how are we... spending our time do we care about what we're doing yeah does this matter yeah and the second is a better use of your energy i feel like you guys are getting better as you get older and maturing i'm not wasting so much time and energy spinning your wheels worrying about things that aren't necessary right yeah or investing in projects that aren't going anywhere yeah i want to get better at that i feel i'm still a little all over the place but you're 25. yeah i know i was gonna say it took a few decades i'm 25 but i'm not 20. a lot of that and and you may be conscious or we may be conscious of certain things but it doesn't mean we implement them all the time it's like you're just more conscious of it oh shoot i i wasted my time doing such and such i need to get back on the track right so it's not like you get perfect i mean nobody's perfect yeah you're you're you're you're intentional about what what do you want well that's what he's talking about the fact that you observe and know that at age 25 i didn't know that well thanks to you guys i have an example to pull from but i'm just realizing okay it was fun living this chaotic quickly changing life and i and i just have something about myself that is inherently chaotic and creative we just went the wrong way and we're late right now classic this is me every day basically okay cool we caught up with them How did we do that? But I can also be mindful about how the time and energy is spent. I don't like the word chaotic. It doesn't ring when you say it. I feel like you're labeling yourself in a negative way. Yes. It is destructive. And that's not you. I think that's how you see yourself or think that others see you. No, you're not chaotic. What you are, you are creative, ambitious, and impatient. Yeah. So it may look like chaotic but it's the impatience really but you have actually deep organized thoughts you just are not letting the proper time to develop them but you're learning that i mean and you're learning it at an early age i mean chaotic will be when somebody does things without any thought and that's never the case with you would you agree with that otherwise you would not be able to produce the work that you produce it wouldn't be possible no project would get completed i think that's the thing that i'm thinking a lot about it's like people have their own ideas about how you should spend your time for selfish reasons yeah and you have to be you have to fight for your own time you have to fight you have to fight for it yeah you have to learn to say no you do have to learn to say no i haven't been very good at it you don't know how to put boundaries because just just like me you tend to want to please you You confuse that doing that for others is love. And so do I. And that's not love. Love is when you show up genuine and you're clear about what your needs are and what you really want. And you say it from a place of peace. So you need to find your peace. Remember I told you, if you find your peace, it's so much easier to put boundaries and to know what you want. How I translate that. this piece is what sits well with you inside within you if that makes you happy you're gonna make others around you you're gonna create harmony with other people i think now you need your own inner harmony to be able to go into your future projects and do the things you want to do yeah that's what i'm trying to figure out right now this is getting out of control butter next to cheese what's going on here people the french like to eat cheese right after their amazing meals. So we wanna be friends. I know that in some ways this is really not a typical day in the life since every day looks different on the outside. But that interaction might just be the best possible answer I could give to what my life looks like right now on the inside. I'm trying to figure out what a better balance looks like and listen to the inner voice that always speaks honestly to me about what I care about doing and where my real priorities lie. It's a journey, but that's what I think we're here to do. Life is a beautiful adventure.

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Check out my single, "Frida" → https://open.spotify.com/track/4bdd9W5KOaNDdcZo0uRC85?si=d9028fa6f49b4e5d

my blog/newsletter → https://nathanieldrew.substack.com/
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