IF THERE’S ONE thing writer Stefanie Preissner is good at, it’s saying what we’re all thinking.

She put it perfectly when she told The Journal why it’s so important to see multi-faceted female lead characters on the small screens …

I don’t think it’s useful for young women to be watching characters on TV who always make the right decision, always land on their feet – it’s unrealistic and it makes me feel less than or less lucky or less capable, and I don’t think that’s a narrative I want to contribute to as a screenwriter,” 

Or when she went off about the rental crisis on The Late Late Show this year.

It’s like The Hungers Games out there.”

Can’t see the video? Click here.

Then on Cutting Edge last night, she managed to give a fairly succinct summation about what it’s like to live in 2018 and the pressure placed on millennials (and beyond) to constantly chase success.

“I set these goals for myself, like ‘oh, I’ll be happy when I …’, whenever, and I’ll be happy when I reach it,” she said.

And then I reach it and I’m like ‘now the next thing’, ‘When I have a show, I’ll be happy’. ‘Have a show, now I want a second season’.

I never stop and go: ‘Look, I have achieved something. Look, I have made a chili con carne from scratch.’ No, because there’s someone on Instagram who also made sour cream and put it on top and put chives on it, and I can’t find chives.”

Despite all her successes, she admitted she can’t help but continue to compare herself to others.

It’s horrendous.”

At this point, Brendan O’Connor felt it appropriate to lean across the desk and reassure Stefanie that she was enough all her own. While we could probably do without the message being delivered in a similarly patronising way, it’s still a message worth taking on board. The busy-or-die attitude that dominates work spaces and internet feeds now is affecting us detrimentally. Are we ever doing enough? What about your “sidehustle”?!

But what about your side hustle? Companies are all too quick to sell you the idea that being busy equates to being happy, and it might make them a profit, it doesn’t make it true.

People might be quick to dismiss the power of “living in the moment” as mental mumbo-jumbo, but the importance of stopping and taking stock really cannot be underestimated. 

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