Guido Maria Kretschmer
With this psycho trick he stays positive
Keeping a positive head – how does that work, dear Guido?
© Christoph Köstlin
How does fashion designer Guido Maria Kretschmer manage to remain so positive and optimistic? In an interview he tells us his trick.
Guido Maria Kretschmer is a cheerful person through and through. The fashion designer still seems to be able to find something positive in every situation. In an interview, he told us his very personal secret of happiness – and that of course he can also be sad at times.
How does Guido manage so gallantly to keep his positive view of things? It’s all a matter of perspective, as he explains to us.
Guido Maria Kretschmer also knows envy
First of all, it is important that you do the things that make you happy. “For example, I can walk through the city very well because I attach great importance to architecture, form and people, I can get enthusiastic about everything and enjoy the fact that something is like that and I accept it – without thinking that I have to own,” says the fashion designer.
Certainly there are always situations that he longs for – after all, it is precisely on social media that we meet all the people whose lives we admire and sometimes certainly envy. Guido knows that too. “I look at Instagram a lot, and then there are people where I think: ‘Now she’s on vacation again!’ Apparently they’re always gone. There’s one who’s starting to annoy me because he’s always sitting in the sun, but then I think to myself: ‘He’s sitting in the sun again, it’s not that nice anymore .'”
It’s all a matter of perspective
And therein lies the crux: You can certainly envy people for their lives, their possessions and their lifestyle. “But you could still be happy for people and not think: ‘I want to too!’ Because then it’s easier to despair,” advises Guido. “That’s why I think social media can be very toxic at times, because it makes you see your own perceived imperfections. All of a sudden you’re sad because you’re like, ‘I don’t look that great either.'”
Guido himself, on the other hand, is someone who is in contact with himself through his daily application of lotion – he notices and knows, for example, that he is aging. His ritual connects him with the now – and so he is not shocked when he realizes that he is getting older. “Instead of being angry or sad about white hair in your beard, you could also say: ‘Hello!'” The designer recently discovered a gray hair on himself. His first thought: “How crazy!” His second: “Be happy, some people turn gray at 28 or have 15 glasses — and even if that were the case, then it’s your life and your thing again!”
The change of perspective also includes “always dealing with what the others are doing who don’t have it so perfect”. That is why social work is so extremely important that one looks, informs oneself, perceives things. “Everyone has their own path, for example I go to a lot of exhibitions, I go to the theatre.” That would help him get a sense of, “Oh look, it’s actually pretty good the way it is.” After all, Guido believes, it is not wrong in our current time to be satisfied with what you have.