Are you the kind of person who wakes up every morning, with a sparkle in your eye, knowing that today is going to be just wonderful? And then as the minutes joyfully tick by your day actually is wonderful, just the way you thought it would be? And things that you planned to accomplish get accomplished, you are happy and helpful in just the way you want, those around you are accommodating in a way that just fills your heart with unexplainable elation? I’m not. If you are, will you please email me and let me know how you make that work? Please?
My mornings typically start with an eye crusty and not a sparkle. I wake up knowing that today there are going to be struggles, tears, and a few episodes involving the power of wills between myself and a 5 year old, and a 3 year old, and let’s be honest, a baby too. The minutes sometimes painfully tick by at a rate slower than a 2-minute time-out. To-do lists go unchecked, unaccomplished, unfulfilled. I end up doing, or not doing, things I regret. I’m less than helpful or over involved in an enabling kind of way, and sadly those little munchkins around me are rarely accommodating to my vision. They have their own visions which include Curious George and Daniel Tiger.
But it’s not all bad. It’s just my average day. Granted, I can’t say it’s all great either. I struggle with the idea that I need to “love every moment because they are fleeting.” Well, thank heavens that some of these moments are fleeting! Can you imagine if the tears and tantrums over getting the wrong piece of toast happened everyday, forever? Fleet away little moment. Fleet! Fleet! Fleet!
Still, in the midst of the moments (those we long to fleet and those we want to freeze in time), those mundane, ordinary moments, is when I propose we find the extraordinary. Our average everyday life can be something we love and find great joy in! Sometimes I have to laugh at myself for thinking that I even suggest there is something extraordinary in my exceptionally ordinary, average life. But there is and there is something extraordinary in your life as well. The question is: how do we find it? and in turn love our very normal average life?
As of right now I have a little formula that helps. Two months from now it may change, but for now it helps me love my ordinary life and find bits of the extraordinary.
FIRST: Look for it
As with any aspect of life we find what we look for. If we are sure people are trying to offend us, we will find offense. If we know our two year old is doing all in her power to make our day miserable, sure as sunrise we will be miserable. On the contrary, if know people mean well and assume they are kind hearted, we will feel love and generosity from others. If we watch our two year old stretching their two year old imagination and abilities we will witness their wonder and excitement. We find what we look for, what we expect to see. Expect to see the extraordinary and there it will be, in the most ordinary mundane experiences.
SECOND: Own the situation
Although there are few things that are permanent and our attitude about our situation is always a choice, even in the midst of change we can own what we are experiencing. Lao Tzu said that we will feel peace when we live in the present. To live in the present means to face it head on, accept what it is, know that it is ours, that we have ownership of it, and some control over it. It is hard to find extraordinary moments when we are longing for moments of another time. The tragedy of living with the mentality of “things will be better when…” or even “things were better when” is that we lose the better “of the now”. When we step up, own “our now”, we can have an influence on it, make it remarkable, and find the extraordinary within it.
THIRD: be willing to be Vulnerable
Some antonyms of vulnerable are guarded, protected, and closed. Being vulnerable allows for the influence of experiences to act upon our hearts and minds. When we are vulnerable we become easily taught, open, and perceptive. But that means we have to be willing to put down protective walls that we may *cough cough* have put up to keep from getting hurt. Being vulnerable is being real, accepting that life is not perfect – ours or anyone else’s, being honest with ourselves and others. It can be frightening, exhausting, and feel unproductive but to find the marvels in our life we need to open ourselves to seeing the everyday with new eyes. We need to put in the work that this change requires, and be willing to strip ourselves of the defenses we’ve established in order to protect ourselves from the unexpected. Often the extraordinary is found where where it is unexpected.
FOURTH (and lastly): Enjoy and Embrace your average
The point of the previous three steps is to help us enjoy and eventually embrace our average but we actually have to be willing to make that jump. It requires real courage to look at our life and embrace what is before us, the good the bad and the ugly. And that is when we begin to love our ordinary, normal, average life. When we stop expecting our everyday to be something it isn’t and embrace what it is we finally can find joy in it, the power to change it and the extraordinary in it.
Not every day is sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows, and certainly not every moment, but there are moments of extraordinary love, vision, joy, peace and understanding. Relish in these moments. Write them down. Remember them. When life becomes a little more cloudy than we’d like, when we only see the dismal in the rainstorm, when our eyes have more crustys than sparkle we can take a step back, or take a look back, or dig a little deeper and find the rays of sunshine fighting through the clouds, the puddles for endless splashy fun from the rain, and a bit more sparkle in the eyes around us. I find I enjoy my average more when I make the decision to “l.o.v.e.” it.