We tend to wait till life drastically shows itself. Individuals envision meaning to come with the fireworks- when there is a huge accomplishment, a massive celebration, or that one moment which will change everything in life. However, now that I am older I have realized that things that really define us are sometimes so subtle and are in the background of days that we think are normal. And they slip in unknown: the morning when we sat still over breakfast and had no pressing business of the kind, the strange talk we had with an unknown, the little errand we did not wish to perform, but performed. Such moments hardly shine like a surface, yet they form the framework of what we are.
This required me several years to realize. As most individuals do, I used to pursue large milestones believing that they were the actual pointers of improvement. Graduate, work, get a promotion, get a bigger place, reach some kind of invisible goal that would finally make it all worth it. I considered the rest of life, the commuting, the habituality, the evenings with no special event, as filler, meant to fill time between significant events. But life, in its usual way, was creeping up at me to have a closer look.
The most memorable nudge was one that took place on a day that I still recall clearly, not due to the unusual nature of it, but because it was a very ordinary day. I was on a bus with lots of people, and I was annoyed by the fact that I had left my headphones at home. The surrounding world seemed too very loud– voices intermingling, somebody beating their feet impatiently, the sound of coins and tickets. I was gazing through the window, mentally creating a list of all that I happened to have to accomplish within this week, when I happened to see the bus slowing down in front of a little school. In came a crowd of children, all their laughter and brightness, and all their youthful energy, which grown-up people tend to forget they used to have. One of the little girls sat down in the seat beside me and was kicking her legs and whistling in excitement. Once she gazed at me with pure childishness and told me, Do you know we are planting trees to-day? My tree shall be the tallest.
I smiled, unaccustomed not to what she said, but the manner in which she believed it. The confidence with which she spoke, her happiness, and her belief that one could influence the future by planting as simple a sapling as possible-all these things remained with me even after I got off the bus. That morning was not very special and yet it made something soft in me. It was a reminder to me that progress is sometimes gradual, and that it starts out of little, and that the spirit which we give to the mundane, becomes so fruitful, so much bigger than we can imagine.
This change of mind did not come immediately; it seldom comes instantly to any person. However, there came a time when I found myself being more mindful with regard to paying attention. I observed how the sun would angle through my window and how it would be during various seasons. I spent more time on the preparation of food, enjoying the little rituals of washing, chopping, stirring. I also learned to value the pleasure of having one more item taken off a long list even though the list was not complete. These minor observations which mattered nothing alone, started to form a more rooted concept of my life.
Something very reassuring about being able to know that it is not ordinary days that are wasted days. They, possibly, are the most truthful manifestation of ourselves. Once the novelty wears out and we are left alone with no one the others to watch, what is left is our true rhythm-it is the habits we form, the thoughts we think and the decisions we make without any bells and whistles. We bring ourselves out in such unstaged moments.
I once read that character is not made under crisis situations but expressed. Now I feel that character is really made during those quiet, uneventful periods between those crises. It is developed in the morning after we fight our way out of bed even when we have no motivation to do it. It is further reinforced when we are patient with a person when we are not in the mood. It develops when we make a vow to ourselves, which the other people are unaware of. Normal days are filled with unlimited possibilities on how to behave like the kind of person we desire to be.
Naturally, the importance of ordinary life does not make each day interesting and meaningful. There are agonizingly repetitive days. Some are frustrating. Others are stressed, uncertain or tired. I have had enough of such days–days when even simple things were hard to carry out, when I felt that motivation was drifting away the instant I required it, when nothing appeared to make any progress. But I have come to understand that even the troubles that are part of our daily life add up to something positive in our lives. All days do not have to be inspirational, just making them honest.
Weirdly enough, the most valuable things I learnt were on the hardest days. I recall a time when my professional life was stagnant and all my efforts to change my life did not work. I awoke every morning feeling tardy, as though I were walking in mud. Back then, it was not some big insight or even any outside external encouragement that kept me going, but rather the little choice to keep on, to turn up, to do the next thing even when it seemed that no progress was being made. It made me understand that perseverance is not a melodramatic act but a silent struggle that is performed in dozens of occasions when one is alone.
The contrast between ordinary and extraordinary days is also another type of beauty. When each day was exciting, none of them would be extraordinary. The duller days leave room to be noticed–they form the shadowing of which the sparkle of the brighter perceptions is the light. The build-up prior to a festival, the exhilaration at the end of something challenging, the excitement of a novel adventure, all these emotions depend on the presence of stable and non-stressful days to give them meaning.
However, what I find most interesting about regular days is that they are unpredictable. Not in a chaotic sense, but the insidious ways that they can turn on their heels. One dialogue is enough to transform your opinion. Any random idea can create a new project. One can possibly befriend someone as a result of an accidental encounter. Some idle thought may lead to a decision long wanted. One can never really know what a day will bring until you are in it.
I now understand that life does not have to be dramatic in order to be meaningful. It should not be spectacle but should be attended to. These little habits to which we are used–saying pleasant words, tidying the place, seeking little trifles, showing affection, learning something new, observing the world–all these add up. They ultimately become the atmosphere of our lives and the memories we develop, the habits according to which we live.
Ordinary days, in a lot of ways, encourage us to take an active part in our own narration. We cannot determine the key events that occur to us, but we can manage to define how our days will be like. How we use our time, the extent to which we listen, the open space we give ourselves to relax, develop or create is chosen. Even that feeling of agency, no matter how insignificant, provides a form of steady empowerment.
I think the more I dwell on it the more I think that ordinary days are the most truthful thing we have as teachers. They are much more consistent, patient, resilient, forgiving and appreciating, not taught to them verbally but through indirect repetition. They push us to be there, to see close, to see something to cherish in what we have, rather than what we believe we lack.
We are used to gauging our life by milestones, yet we sense our life by moments. And the majority of those moments are not that dramatic: eating with your beloved one, going outside and getting some air after a hard day, completing some activity that you are holding back on weeks and weeks, listening to a song that cheers you up. All these do not require applause and yet they all help in making one feel alive.
At the time of writing this, I am being reminded that even writing of this essay is a normal action. It is not enclosed in any dramatic thing–no pressure, no deadline, no waiters. It, however, provides sanity, reality, and connectedness. That, also, is the magic of ordinary life: the power of making the ordinary acts meaningful, as long as they are performed purposefully.
Finally, I do not believe that the aim is to avoid the normal days and hurry up. Its objective is to occupy them to a greater degree. To realize that they are not the background to our actual lives but they are our actual lives. Human understanding is not constructed out of the peak moments only, it is constructed out of thousands of little, imperfect, beautiful days piled one upon another. and when we learn to perceive those days, their silent feet, their teachings in their unsophisticated corners, we might find that we have been receiving a message in our lives the whole time. Not in the remarkable, but in the extremely mundane.
By: Abhinav Arora
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