Life is lived and enjoyed, in the ordinary moments. The moment where we are standing by the kettle waiting for it to boil or sitting at the traffic lights waiting for the light to change to green. If we can find the quiet contentment and joy in that moment, we find peace.
If the only thing that brings us joy is the extraordinary: sipping a negroni while watching a sunset in Greece, then we condemn ourselves to a life less lived.
There are lots of self help books and articles written about this concept, Esther Eckert talks about when ‘the ordinary becomes extraordinary’; Michael Foley in his book ‘Embracing The Ordinary’ describes 21st century: “cultural factors such as the obsession with celebrity that makes an anonymous, mundane life seem worse than death." Perhaps that's overstating it, but many of us will recognise the ‘compare and despair’ experiences we can get when scrolling through social media. That idea that "everyone else is living a better life than I am" feeling.
In the therapy world, if our idea of a measure our success is a client with a phobia of flying who after treatment goes on to become an airline pilot, we do ourselves a disservice and we forget the many clients whose day is now calmer while they wait for the traffic lights to turn green, while they drive to their ordinary destinations.
If we think the only good number on a scale is ‘10’ we might miss the release of tension that occurred when 4 became 5.
There are people out there today living an ordinary day, and not an anxious one because they've taken steps to notice and enjoy the ordinary moments, and that’s magical by any measure.
Have an ordinary day, free from the need to compare and despair, free from imposter syndrome and free from perfectionism.
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