The Case for an Ordinary Life

Part of the reason we overlook the good things in our lives is that we become so accustomed to them. We notice the holiday because it is unusual, but the walk we take every week becomes unremarkable. We look forward to the new experience because we imagine it will make us feel something different, while barely registering the familiar things that already make us happy.

We are encouraged to make our lives extraordinary. To travel more, experience more, achieve more, see more, say yes more often. We are surrounded by the idea that a life well lived should be full of memorable experiences, and increasingly, that those experiences should be documented too.

But there is something I find much more interesting than the extraordinary life.

The ordinary one.

The ordinary is not the bit that happens while you are waiting for your real life to begin. The ordinary is your life.

It is what happens on the Tuesday when there is nowhere special to go. It is dinner at home, the familiar walk, the school run, the same people, the same cup of tea, the swim you do every Thursday, the food you cook without thinking about it. It is the things you repeat so often that you stop noticing them.

And perhaps that is precisely why they deserve more of our attention.

Ian Bogost explores the sensory pleasures and details hiding in plain sight in The Small Stuff. I like the idea, not because I think we need another instruction to slow down and be mindful, but because paying attention to ordinary life can help us understand ourselves better. It gives us a chance to notice what we might otherwise take for granted, and to learn from what we find.

When you pay proper attention to your days, you start to see patterns. You notice the people you consistently feel better after seeing, the food that genuinely satisfies you, the places where you feel at ease and the routines that make life easier. You might also begin to recognise the things you keep doing because you have always done them, even though they add very little to your life.

There is a difference between noticing these things and simply being present. Attention becomes particularly useful when it helps us discern what matters to us. Not everything deserves equal space in our lives, and not everything we have accumulated needs to stay there.

This is where I think we sometimes make life more complicated than it needs to be. We assume that change must begin with adding something: a new routine, a new habit, a new goal, another thing to fit into an already crowded life. But sometimes, the more useful question is what we can take away.

I rather like the Marie Kondo principle here, applied to life rather than wardrobes. We do not need to keep everything simply because we have always had it. Some things have served their purpose. Some were useful once and aren’t anymore. Others have accumulated gradually, without us ever consciously deciding that they belong in our lives.

Making space doesn’t have to mean a dramatic reinvention. It might simply mean reconsidering a commitment, changing a routine or giving yourself permission to stop doing something that no longer feels worthwhile. And on the other side of that, it might mean protecting the things you have come to realise are important, even when they seem ordinary from the outside.

There is a reason the emotional quality of our everyday experiences deserves attention. Psychologist Barbara Fredrickson’s research on positive emotions explores how experiences such as joy, interest and contentment can broaden our thinking and help build psychological resources over time. The significance isn’t that one lovely afternoon will transform your life. It’s that the small experiences we have repeatedly can shape how we feel and how we engage with the world. Ordinary life matters because it is where most of our life happens.

I think this is also why contentment deserves a little more credit.

Not contentment as settling, or deciding that everything is fine and there is nothing left to want. There is a difference between being content with your life and having no desire to change it. You can be grateful for what you have and still be curious about what comes next.

Perhaps a more useful kind of contentment comes from recognising what is already giving you what you need. When you know what makes you feel connected, nourished, happy or at ease, you have something meaningful to move towards. You can make choices with a clearer sense of what matters to you, rather than constantly looking for something new in the hope that it might finally be enough.