"At 40, you do not have to go through every sh ***"? Why we love this anti-counselor!
Barbara: Why did you write this book?
Tanja Mairhofer: For a long time I tried to optimize myself. That's why I read tons of guides. I come from TV, and everybody told me how to be. Then I was also mother in the Munich bacon belt, there is also very nice pressure. But I, as a chaotic, did not manage that. That's when the idea for an anti-counselor came to my mind.
Is not that a contradiction again?
Sure, because an anti-counselor gives the advice to follow any advice (Laughing). Actually, I can only give two pieces of advice: Do not always listen when someone wants to explain how to be and just let all five be straight.
You can do it yourself, apparently. For example, you write that you have never cleaned windows before?
Yes that's true. I have not even cleaned windows in sixteen years with my own household. However, I also moved a lot. Clean windows do not interest me. A perfect household is for me a sign of a wasted life. However, it is always relatively tidy with me, because it is exhausting when everything is too messy. That's why I just have less things to clean up. At some point I started to stamp out. For example, I only have one pair of high heel shoes. That's enough.
But sometimes you have to do things you do not want to do ...
Sure, we all have to. For example, today I had to eat a large plate of pasta, even though I ate noodles every day for the whole week. I do not post that either. But seriously, of course I have to work and do things that I do not want. My concern is that you do not constantly run in the hamster wheel and something must be, what you are not yet. I am tired of the whole optimization mania. I've been there for a long time, that just does not make me happy. It sounds very much like Dalai Lama, but I think you can also stop and be grateful for everything you have.
"I like my prosperity wreaths"
But you yourself are a presenter, actress and yoga teacher. Everything sounds pretty perfect. And you look pretty good too ...
Yeah, sure, I'm pretty enough for the subway, but have I been watching TV for a while? and I really had to listen to everything That I should not look down, because otherwise I have a double chin, that I am wrong, that my nose is too big, that I am not sexy enough, that my stomach is too thick ...
How do you like your stomach?
I like my prosperity wreaths. I have him, among other things, because I like to eat and my daughter was in there. Take a look around the beach, people just do not look like in advertising. I come from an Upper Austrian Kaff where it did not matter what people look like. That was good. The question is who you want to compete with. I just do not want to compare myself to a Victoria's Secret Model who got a baby a few days before the show and got rid of the kilos with three spinach leaves and lots of water in record time. I'm not like that. You can not make a greyhound out of a pug.
That's why there was a specific rule in your old girl WG?
Exactly. The first rule was that you should not talk bad about ourselves and we could only compliment each other. The second rule was that there must always be a bottle of gin. The first of these two very meaningful rules is also available at home for my daughter today.
That sounds theoretically logical. But somehow we all want to be always relaxed and then we are stressed out because we are afraid of not getting anything done. Is there a means against that?
Yes, you have to fail. Always fail. Then you realize that the world does not collapse if something does not work out. I noticed that for the first time when VIVA2 went down the drain and I did not have a job anymore. At that time, I was sitting in the kitchen, reading a book and drinking coffee, thinking it was just as nice as it is? even though I'm not sitting on the couch with Bono and Lenny Kravitz anymore.
Speaking of failure. What can not you do yourself?
Cook. I'm not the super-mother who always does everything herself. At the birthday of my daughter, there was just a deep-frozen cake? and yet the party was nice. You do not always have to play the party entertainer, children have to be left to themselves, then it will be much funnier. At the last birthday we were in a fun park, I read two hours and let the kids do it.
Is old age helpful if you want to end the day?
Yes. I'm 40 now. You just do not have to do any shit. I find that very liberating.
© Alan Ovaska / PrivateTanja Mairhofer is a presenter, actress and yoga teacher. For ten years now, she has been a permanent member of the "Broadcast with the Elephant" at WDR.She lives near Munich with her husband and daughter.
Photo: Alan Ovaska
© Tanja Mairhoffer / PRWhy do you do everything wrong, if you want to do everything right? by Tanja Mairhofer has been published by ZS Verlag and costs 14.99 euros.
Photo: PR
