222. Lifemaxxing
I’ve always enjoyed the whole “-maxxing” phenomenon. Gymmaxxing, socialmaxxing, napmaxxing (a personal favorite). It’s absurd, but also kind of aspirational, like a tongue-in-cheek way of admitting that we’re all just trying to squeeze the most out of our oddly specific lives. Perhaps if we name it, it’ll count more.
People are using the term “lifemaxxing” to describe the mindset of being committed to getting the most out of this life and letting themselves truly relish in the things they love most. Lifemaxxing looks like different things for different people - whether it’s an activity-filled outdoorsy day, a 12-hour creative flow session, or reading a book in the exact right chair with the exact right snack.
I think I unintentionally lifemaxxed last weekend. I'm visiting my loved ones in the US for a bit before heading off. I had a weekend with my friends and it was very nice.
It started with a hike with my friends. A friend of mine was house-sitting/pet-sitting for 2 big dogs and 4 cats for his coworker this weekend. The coworker was really kind and said that he could bring over friends at the house. We decided to meet up at the house and go for a hike 20 minutes away.
I, and most of my friends, are described as "a lot" or "too much" very often. For example, "Kayla's a character, she's a lot, but we enjoy her for it." Now if you combine the insane, silly, messy powerful forces of my hometown friends, you get a funny little expedition. We weren’t trying to summit anything or prove a point - we just wanted to sweat a little, be in the hills, and enjoy the company. Someone brought a bottle of mead. Not a flask, not a hydration pack - just a precarious bottle of alcohol being waved around, which felt like the sort of chaotic neutral energy I like to keep around. We also brought Jarritos with a 5% alcohol twist (because electrolytes, I guess).
It was a nice quiet kind of camaraderie, with a bit of chaos. We looked at the cows, looked at the lizards, trudged through the sprinkle of rain that came down. That whole hike was wet and dreadfully British-coded, even though we're in the US. Just legs moving, leaves crunching, sun filtering in the cloudy rainy skies.
Also during the weekend, my friends and I walked around downtown to explore the simple shops and game board place. We came across a bar that said it was like: "Markel's birthday party - no cover, come on in". We decided when night falls and we had our dinner, we're going to head into the bar and celebrate with Markel and his friends.
Just to preface, we did not know Markel. But the sign was written with so much confidence that we had no choice but to attend. The party was already in full swing (not really, but we still had a great time). There was a long table that had a lot of Markel's friends. A stranger in a hat was singing R&B, like it was his personal spiritual testimony. We joined in the karaoke, because why not. My friends and I sang Bedrock and other hip hop classics together. And when the karaoke started to wind down, the upstairs was hip-happening and we all shrugged and walked in the club. So we danced. Badly. Gleefully. For longer than I thought my knees would allow.
We got home, eventually. We watched a bit of the Black Mirror season before heading to bed. I slept for maybe 4 hours. Woke up with jet lag, dehydration, and a surprise 3am anxiety spiral that felt like it crawled out from under the bed just to say hi. In the morning, I found that my contact lenses had given up entirely - shriveled into crunchy little question marks. I could not see. I could not think. I could not be sure I wasn’t hallucinating the entire weekend.
The week before, my friend signed me up for a 5k. I was so obviously underprepared, but I still enjoyed and trained for a little bit before. But I obviously had a full crazy day before the race.
And still - I ran the 5K. So basically, I ran the race:
- no sleep
- no prior training (I mean, I did ran like a couple of days a week before the race, but it certainly wasn't enough it was kind of last minute!)
- went hiking and dancing the day before
- jet-lagged (I flew in a couple days before from Singapore)
- no meal (just some fruit and bites of the leftovers from yesterday)
- no vision (I forgo-ed the contact lenses and ran blind)
- fearful for my life (there was a hired clown for the event and I did not like seeing that at all)
- tripped over a child halfway
No food, no energy, no clear vision (metaphorically and physically). I still did it, which was hilarious. 34:00 minutes! Respectable. Not competitive, but honestly, I didn’t feel like I was racing anyone, just myself.
Afterward, standing there in my sweat-drenched clothes, eyes half-shut, stomach growling, I felt weirdly accomplished. Not in the “look at me grind” kind of way. More like: wow, I’m still here. My body carried me through it all, even when I hadn’t done anything to deserve that kindness.
My friends and I had a nice breakfast right after the 5k. It was awesome. I fell asleep so fast when I got home.
That, to me, is lifemaxxing.
I feel like lifemaxxing is not about being optimal. It’s not about the spreadsheets or the supplements or whatever the monk-mode guys are preaching about. Personally, I think it's about saying yes to a little fun, keeping your promises to yourself, and living the kind of life that gets a bit blurry around the edges - sometimes literally (because I was using echolocation to navigate that entire race to be honest. Could not see a meter ahead of me lol)
It’s about eating a hearty breakfast after the run. Showing up when you feel 60%. Letting strangers become temporary friends. Laughing on a hill with a bottle of mead with your buddies. Lifemaxxing isn’t a grind. It’s not even a glow-up. It’s just remembering you’re alive. And occasionally letting that be enough.
And maybe that’s what I like most about the concept, because it doesn’t promise meaning. It doesn’t promise transformation. It just implies intensity - and not in the burnout way, but in the wakefulness way. It reminds me that I can feel the fullness of my life even when it's kind of messy and ad-libbed and unfiltered. You just need to notice when the moment has texture. When you’re somewhere you wouldn’t have predicted, holding a Jarritos bottle in the middle of the hills and wondering how you got here and thinking, weirdly, that you wouldn’t trade it for anything. Sometimes it’s just about days it’s just deciding, even briefly, to show up. For your friends. For your body. For the sheer ridiculous gift of being conscious.
The older I get, the more I realize life doesn’t ask you to be exceptional - just present. And sometimes, presence looks like stumbling your way through the rolling green hills, or karaoke at a stranger’s birthday party, or running with a bunch of people at a 5k race, dehydrated and wide-eyed and very much alive.
~ blogmaxxing rn,
<3 K