“You can have an ordinary life and still be happy.”
“An ordinary life can be enjoyable.”
This is what the internet has been telling me.
I read this and think, STILL be happy? Really? Why THANK YOU world- for allowing me the shred of hope that perhaps, even if by accident, happiness may ever so slowly trickle into my day to day.
*Can you taste the sarcasm?*
We as a culture (me included) value the extraordinary. We love amazing people, amazing things and amazing concepts, solutions, beauty and innovation.
Extraordinary things are often misunderstood long before their value is recognized.
And yet also, what about ordinary life?
Talk about misunderstood.
Ordinary living is not an excuse for complacency. It is not a typical, predictable, mundane and boring existence. Ordinary living exists synonymously with extraordinary living. We wake, eat, work, do laundry, do the shopping, the cooking, the cleaning, the preparing, the driving, in between raising kids, making money, and everything it takes to exist in this world- we live. Ordinary existence is found in bulks of time chunks as well as the nooks and crannies of our day to day, essentially, everything we are doing that is NOT extraordinary.
And what does the world tell you?
Find what you’re passionate about!
Find what makes you feel valued!
Find what fulfills you!
Find what makes you happy!
All these expressions offer the insight that the current life you’re leading isn’t and shouldn’t be enough for you.
And maybe there IS more to consider about your life.
But you’re not going to find your extraordinary intention without finding how to cope and thrive in the ordinary spaces of everyday life.
I’ve said it before and it is just as true now: ambition bred from discontentment is a dangerous journey leading to more discontentment. One of the key struggles facing the lives of us ordinary people in this world is FEAR.
We fear being less.
We fear being a stereotype.
We fear being complacent.
This is just me theorizing, but life, true living, isn’t found in passions. Life is the in between steps from point A to point B of what you’re trying to get done. Life is found in how we handle the little steps. The hang ups. The planning all week for an event, getting into the car only to find it won’t start. We have to embrace the ordinary, difficult, boring, and odd situations that make up our reality.
In the ordinariness of living- in the day to day, the big moments and the inbetweens, allow your ordinary place in it to be a good thing and not a second rate option.