Average, everyday gorgeousness
Having started my 21.5.800 challenge this week you might be hearing from me a little more often. 800 words is quite a lot. The execution is lovely, don’t get me wrong, but if I ‘save’ up all the blog posts I am writing they will be old, crusty and irrelevant by the time I post them.
Today was a perfectly ordinary day. I really mean that - perfectly ordinary.
There is such pressure today to be extraordinary, exceptional, a rock star, untemplated. We are obsessed with breaking molds, smashing records, shattering limitations, exceeding expectations. We honour the rare moments of triumph to the exclusion of all else. We gloss over the journey, dust over the ugly and the small that built our pinnacle. Despite our obsession with individual pursuits of raging success, we maintain that relationships, people and love are the sweetest, most important parts of life.
This seems like a disconnect to me. If our relationships are the part of life we treasure most then why aren’t we obsessedwith cultivating compassion and forgiveness? Why are we encouraging and feeding our egotism as opposed to our humility, mercy and kindness?
Has our obsession with ‘being exceptional’ impaired our ability to appreciate the ordinary? Have we forgotten that the journey is what is important? Have we lost the ability to really bear witness to the baby steps of others? Have we lost the ability to be happy in the moment?
Today was a perfectly ordinary day. I was present all day. I was present folding the laundry and cooking minestrone, in the moment giving cuddles and having heart to heart talks. Simple ordinary occurrences. The beauty in the everyday ins and outs of my life is heartbreaking. That beauty is only available in the moment, and my ego striving for something better takes me away from the moment.
I think I would like to be exceptionally ordinary. I want to appreciate the average, everyday gorgeousness of my life. I want the eyes to see that beauty; I need the heart willing to truly inhabit the moment.
