Your Ordinary Life is Your Extra-ordinary Life

Once upon a time, in a land far away…

I love Goa! There was a time in my life when I made every attempt with my family to get away there. It was an eight-hour drive, and it was worth every effort and money spent.

I love being at beaches. Feeling the waft of salty breeze against my face, savouring the ocean scent, soaking the sound and sight of the valiant attempts of the weakening wavelets rushing towards my outstretched feet and retreating away, and indulging in the seafood platter by the sea—could life be better?

Often, people go on vacations to escape the demands and routines of the everyday. They need a break before they break down. Others resist conforming to the drudgery of the routines of commute, work, grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning etc. For them, variety is the spice of life, and they create an alternate lifestyle where they have control over their freedom. They find creative ways to make ends meet and pursue leisure.

And I agree with both their sentiments in many ways. We need leisure. The hustle of everyday routines and work priorities force many to pull away for a recharge. And for the latter group, “life is to be lived!” and so, they do everything to not stray far from ecstatic experiences—every weekend and holiday is seized upon.

The common factor between both the groups is this—the stuff that life consists of is hard, boring, and tedious. What happens at the little vacations and getaways—that’s where the fullness of life is.

Everyone is convinced that there’s more to life. Only it’s not here but ‘there’.

Historically, religion has played a huge role in exploring and explaining the limitation as well as the expansiveness of life. Words like 'body' and 'soul' have found its way into common vocabulary because of deep metaphysical reflections or received revelation.

Later on, the modern world through its contributions in medicine, engineering, education, and economic enterprise made an attempt in improving the quality of life for many (albeit at the expense of the unfortunate subjugation and misery of many others through slavery and colonization). A long, healthy, and dignified life where one enjoyed a stable income with various freedoms, comfort, and access to material good or service emerged to be much more than what even a prince in the fourth century could have dreamt of.

For sure, the progress through millennia have revealed that there’s more to life than what was known hitherto. Even though the material quality of life had increased for many, like thorns among roses, deep discontentment sprang along with even such a life, thus pushing people to look for the elusive abundance elsewhere.

As I stare at this predicament, it becomes increasingly clear that there’s many ways humankind is quick to dismiss the present and live for the ‘there’. And when they get there, they realize that there’s no ‘there’ there but is freshly allured towards a new ‘there’, thus pushing the soul into a state of restless search and discontentment—a toil seeking the elusive neverland.

A life lived looking into the distance and being absent in the present is no living at all. The boring, the mundane, the pain, the repetitiveness, the toil, and the uncertainty is the stuff that life is made of. Should we create an ideal and normalize it we would experience the same frustrations. After all, we normalized it.

The richness of the here and now

So, can there be more to this present life? I argue that there is. And the way ‘there’, in fact, is the way here and now. All we have is the gift of the present. We need to accept life as a whole irrespective of our qualitative experience of it. Jesus over two thousand years ago said, “don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” The echoes of this ring true in many spiritual and philosophical traditions.

If the expansiveness and abundance of life can be experienced only in the here and now, amidst the mundane and quotidian, we need to lean into it and seize the present fully. Fully accept and embrace it, pay attention to its ordinary details, absorb the fullness of its mediocrity and shallowness. Make this present to be the substance of your life.

The way ‘there’ is the way ‘here’.

The diamond is in the rough. This will not transform the present. But it will transform us who experience the present. In that transformation we are able to shine through and celebrate the fullness of this life.

This is not an excuse for being lazy and living a sorry life. It is not a philosophy for accepting fate and letting anything be. It’s not advocating for a life imprisoned by unjust chains of circumstance and a resignation from life. Far from it, it allows you to be grounded, meet reality where it really is at, and pursue the change you rightly desire from the clarity that emerges from a non-judgmental acceptance and awareness of the full condition along with the associated range of emotions. This rare clarity is precisely what helps one to bring about an inner and outer revolution.

Such a life does not forbid you from daydreaming, longing for true beauty of nature, or seeking a life of peace in the midst of deep conflict. In fact, it highly values what is true, good, and beautiful, and calls upon each person to cultivate it. And the truth is you can cultivate it even in the tepid circumstances of everyday life.

So please go ahead and plan that vacation with abandon at the beaches in Goa or streets of Hi Chi Minh, not as an escape from the here to ‘there’ but to experience the fullness of the new ‘here’. Your ordinary life indeed is your extraordinary life.

Be soaked in the ordinary

So, the next time, you are rudely woken up by your child in the middle of the night, or your friend takes advantage of your amiability, or your colleague behaves unprofessionally, or you are doing the dishes—lean in and experience it fully. Stay with it till you are saturated with a non-judgmental awareness of each pregnant passing moment. Be fully aware of the pain, the betrayal, the sinking of your emotion, the absolute boredom, the sensation of the soap and grime slipping down your fingers as the cold-water splashes over your hands and the dish as you straighten your back and exhale. Be aware of all that appears in your conscious space. And pour love into it.

That, my friend, is the extraordinary life—a life lived and experienced fully. The simplicity of this ordinary moment is where the treasure is. When your mind drifts away longing for something and looking for something, and you catch yourself at it, smile. You have your opportunity to intentionally observe even that thought which is now part of your present. And as that thought fades, lean into the new moment, being grateful for the many opportunities to experience the extraordinary in the ordinary.