Being “maxxed out” used to mean reaching the limit on your credit card. And while I have reached my limit, it’s not financially (not yet, anyway). Rather, I’m maxxed out on “maxxing”, that suffix we haven’t been able to escape for the past couple of years and that has suddenly gone into overdrive with its latest iteration: whimsymaxxing.
Thus far I have come across: looksmaxxing, sleepmaxxing, fibremaxxing, healthmaxxing, longevitymaxxing, nothing-maxxing (yes, you read that right), cyclemaxxing, grandmamaxxing, pheromonemaxxing – and do not get me started on friction-maxxing.
That last one is the act of making your life actively harder in order to stop being such a soft, snowflakey member of whatever generation came after the last truly hardcore generation, which, as we all know, was X.
If you’re not insert-noun-of-your-choice-maxxing, you’re apparently a lazy, feckless non-influencer who will never achieve glass skin, reach your recommended yearly intake of fibre in one day or have the guts to hit yourself in the face with a hammer to improve your jawline (more on that later). What a loser!
Well, I, for one, find maxxing exhausting. It’s a trend that manages to be toxic, tedious and tiring all at once, meaning I’m on a mission to actively un-max my life to achieve the trifecta of doing less, caring less and, importantly, whimsying less.
The maxxing trend was born out of gaming culture and the practice of “min-maxing”, which was about maximising a character or system's strengths in one area while minimising the weaker areas to achieve peak efficiency. It does not help that the last video game I played was Donkey Kong, and let’s just say Mario was never reunited with Pauline on my watch.
As the term shifted into the mainstream, maxxing was quickly adopted by influencers across TikTok and other social media platforms as a byword for self-improvement and the importance of daily routines.
For self-improvement, it meant optimising every single aspect of your life to push habits, appearance and lifestyle choices to their absolute limits. And for daily routines, it translated into turning everything under the gentle umbrella of “self-care” into a competitive 32-step regimen designed to bankrupt you of your time, money and friends because no one, and I mean no one, wants to hear about the REM-cycle you sleepmaxxed last night.
Some forms of maxxing, however, take self-improvement to far more extreme places. At its most alarming, looksmaxxing can involve hitting facial bones with a hammer in an attempt to alter the jawline or cheekbones – a practice popularised by a chap calling himself “Clavicular”, who brought it from fringe online forums into the mainstream on TikTok.
Needless to say, he comes across as somewhat troubled. Stay away, kids: hammers are for hitting nails, not faces.
My main issue with maxxing is its distinct whiff of aggression. This idea that most aspects of life can be pummelled into submission with the right routine, latest online purchase or hyper-competitive mindset rubs up against an unrelenting refusal to accept one’s own limitations – financially, emotionally, physically. It allows no room to pivot, manoeuvre or fail.
After all, if we’re meant to be giving “main character energy” in our lives, then what is a skin breakout but abject defeat? What is weight gain but a sign of being weak-willed?
Maxxing is the gamification of life, the idea that if you could only find that one magic (non-existent) hack to perfection, then you could commercialise, advertise and, vitally, make other people just as dissatisfied with themselves as you are with yourself. After all, misery loves company.
So how do we un-max? Begin by understanding that “good enough” is often, well, good enough. It’s not the best, and it doesn’t have to be because not everything is or can be.
Secondly, stop treating every space in your life like a social hole of shame that needs to be filled. Blank hours, days or weeks in your calendar are a sign to relax and focus on hobbies. Stop multitasking. Do one thing at a time. If you’re at the gym, be at the gym, don’t use it as time to catch up on work calls or emails. And finally, I beg of you, if you are over 15 years of age, do not whimsy any aspect of your life. Plastic stickers aren’t whimsical, because whimsy can’t be bought, it can only be felt.
If you stop trying to max every part of your life, you’ll find that your natural, unoptimised thoughts, feelings and instincts in all their good, bad, ugly, funny, infuriating, challenging ways are a far less stressful way to a healthier mindset.
