On the unremarkable
I sat down this morning to write. (Yes, currently I write day-of. Perhaps that will change. For now…)
My mind was blank. Nothing stood out. No big insight, no big breakthrough, seemingly no big anything.
I thought to myself, “I have nothing to share”.
So I looked back at my calendar. Nothing remarkable. I returned to the gym (twice) after an absence a two-month absence. I walked in the woods on my side of town that could have been Rock Creek Park if I didn’t know any better. I replanted some parsley and cilantro that didn’t take the first time. I had two first-round job interviews. I tended to my car. I had lunch with one of my sisters. I started—and finished—a book purely for pleasure. (I also finished a book for my coaching book club.) I turned my attention towards planning my upcoming birthday celebration.
Wait—I have nothing to share? Nothing was remarkable? Catherine. Tune in.
Everything I listed is actually remarkable, as every thing makes up the everyday joy of being human. What am I seeking? And where am I seeking it? I know from yoga that contentment—santosa—is the practice of not needing the next thing to arrive in order to be okay with what’s here now (sutra 2.42). So if not these “things”, then what else do I need to find joy?
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
We get good at what we practice. We learn to practice dissatisfaction? We get good at being dissatisfied. We learn to practice boredom? We get good at being bored. Yet we learn to practice soothing, calmness, appreciation? We get good at being soothed, at being calm, at appreciating.
Most of life is unremarkable—interrupted by some magnificent highs and some unfortunate lows, sure. So if joy is going to show up anywhere reliably, it’s in the middle—it’s in the unremarkable. Otherwise, we’re just waiting.
We must then practice contentment to get good at contentment. Finding soothing, calmness, appreciation in the day-to-day, be it the gym or our errands or our free time, is how we build this muscle and how we learn to recognize joy for what it is—around us, surrounding us, for ours to take.
I reflected on the recent miracle—the landing of Artemis II—and these fellow humans 240,000 miles away looking back at us. The message Victor Glover shared, from a vantage point almost no human has ever had, was essentially this: from here, you are the special thing.
“Maybe the distance we are from you makes you think what we are doing is special, but we’re the same distance from you. And I’m trying to tell you—just trust me—you are special.”
How can we come to see that the everyday is just as special as the extraordinary? Our daily tasks just as profound? Otherwise, we’re just waiting for joy to appear on its own—and we’ll miss the unremarkable moments that were joy all along.