We hear a lot about the "Australian way of life", particularly as the debate around immigration rears its controversial head.
"We must protect the Australian way of life," people cry as they wave their banners and chant their slogans.
"We have to stop immigrants from destroying the Australian way of life."
So much angst is expended over this concept; those four little words that seem to mean so much.
Except they don't.
They don't actually mean anything because the "Australian way of life" is a myth.
Quite simply, it does not exist.
Strictly speaking, beyond the traditional ways of the Aboriginal people, Australians have always borrowed their customs, eating habits, sports and habits from other countries.
At first it was the English, the Irish, the Scots and the Welsh.
We ate their food, spoke their language, carried on their customs, wore their clothes and adopted their sports and habits.
It was a British way of life.
Then, as more immigrants from different countries made their homes in Australia, we started to adopt other customs as our own.
We started changing our eating habits, we added new words to our vocabulary, we celebrated new holidays and marked old holidays in new ways.
Slowly the British way of life we had always lived started the stretch and morph, expanding to make room for our new experiences.
You think your traditional weekly menus are part of the "Australian way of life"? Think again.
Without immigrants there would be no "taco Tuesdays", no weekly spag bol or cheap pizzas or 3am drunken kebabs.
There would be no fancy ethnic breads to smash your avocado on, no fancy coffee to obsess over, no amazing street festivals to attend.
Put simply, huge parts of what we typically think of as "traditionally Australian" are actually appropriated from the many and varied cultures that have integrated their culture into that of Australia.
A food stall at a Multicultural Festival at Federation Square in Melbourne. (AAP) Source: AAP
What about sport? Surely that's true blue Aussie? Wrong again.
Almost every sport that's popular in Australia - that's played on the beaches, in the backyards, on the ovals and in the streets - has been nicked from overseas.
Rugby - both league and union - developed much of it's present form in the UK, as did cricket, while football has come from much the same place, and Australia continues to buy banner players from Europe to pump up the game's popularity.
In fact, Australia is so heavily influenced by the rest of the world that there is very little from our culture that can be separated from other countries.
And this is a good thing.
It proves our multicultural chops. It gives us street-cred as a country that embraced the best bits of every culture we ever came across.
Much like we do with celebrities, Australians will happily adopt anything worth having - be it food, festival, clothing or custom - and cheerfully decide it's our's.
So yes, let's enjoy our lives as we have always done, but let's rule out the "Australian way of life" phurphy.
Australia is great because we all live our lives so differently and we have the opportunity to do so.
We can choose what we wear, what we eat, where we go and who we hang out with.
There is no meta-lifestyle that we are required to follow in order to be considered "Australian".
Our lifestyle - and our culture - is always open for further enrichment as new people come to our shores.
And, as in the past, the new additions they bring are unlikely to tear or destroy the existing fabric of our society.
Instead it will grow in lustre and complexity, adding new dimensions, new flavours and new faces to the way of life we already love to live.
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