Living Well in Ordinary Days

Most of life is ordinary.

We tend to remember our lives through landmarks: the graduation, the wedding, the birth, the new job, the journey abroad, the house, the achievement, the retirement. Photographs preserve these occasions, and when we recount our lives to others, these are often the stories we choose to tell.

Yet they comprise remarkably little of our actual existence.

Most mornings are simply mornings.

We wake. We wash. We dress. We prepare something to eat or drink. We work. We tend to our responsibilities. We speak with familiar people. We walk familiar streets. We prepare another meal. Perhaps we read, watch something, study, tend a garden, sit outside, call someone we love, or spend an hour doing very little at all.

Then evening arrives.

Eventually, we sleep.

And that is life.

These ordinary hours are not merely the intervals between memorable occasions. They are not a waiting room in which we remain until something exciting finally happens. These seemingly inconsequential moments are the substance from which a lifetime is made.

There is, however, a peculiar human tendency to place life perpetually somewhere in the future.

I will be happy when I graduate.

When I receive the promotion.

When I lose weight.

When I have enough money.

When I move.

When I find someone.

When the children are older.

When I retire.

There is nothing inherently wrong with anticipation or aspiration. Having something to look forward to can be delightful. Ambition can animate us, and preparation for the future is often an act of prudence.

But when contentment becomes perpetually conditional upon the arrival of something else, the present gradually becomes something merely to endure.

And the present occupies nearly all of our lives.

Perhaps we should also reconsider what we mean when we describe something as ordinary.

We have almost transformed the word into a diminishment.

An ordinary life.

An ordinary home.

An ordinary day.

Yet there can be tremendous richness within the commonplace.

The first cup of tea in the morning can be pleasurable.

Opening a window and feeling cool air enter the room can be pleasurable.

Walking somewhere without haste can be pleasurable.

Preparing food you genuinely enjoy can be pleasurable.

Discovering a book capable of absorbing an entire afternoon can be pleasurable.

A conversation that leaves you laughing long after it has ended can be pleasurable.

Returning to a home in which you feel at ease can be pleasurable.

None of these experiences is extraordinary.

They need not be.

Nor must we embellish every mundane task until it becomes something it is not. Washing the dishes need not become a transcendent experience. Sometimes we are simply washing the dishes.

Living well in ordinary days is something quieter.

It is arranging the ordinary portions of our existence, insofar as circumstances permit, so that our days contain things we genuinely value.

And those days need not resemble anyone else's.

One person's beautiful ordinary day may contain children running noisily through the house.

Another person may contain absolute silence.

One person may relish dinner surrounded by friends.

Another may prefer dinner alone with a book.

Someone may desire a garden.

Someone else may flourish in a city apartment.

One person may spend Saturday cheering at a football match.

Another may wander unhurriedly through a museum.

There is no singular configuration of an ordinary life that guarantees fulfillment.

The purpose is not to discover the good ordinary life.

It is to discover your own.

Perhaps living well, then, is not measured primarily by the number of extraordinary experiences we accumulate, but by the quality of the ordinary days between them.

Because if we are fortunate enough to live for many decades, the overwhelming majority of those years will not consist of mountaintops, celebrations, ceremonies, voyages, or revelations.

They will be mornings.

Afternoons.

Evenings.

They will be meals and errands, conversations and solitude, work and repose.

They will be Tuesdays.

And if we can cultivate a life in which an ordinary Tuesday contains some measure of peace, nourishment, curiosity, companionship or solitude, useful endeavor, leisure, and perhaps something worth anticipating tomorrow, then an ordinary life need not be ordinary at all.

It may simply be a life well lived.

Until next time,

Keep observing. Keep learning. Keep cultivating.