Why It’s More Important to Celebrate the Ordinary vs the Extraordinary in Your Life
When was the last time you took a moment to stop and celebrate the ordinary-ness of your life? When was the last time you raised a glass and made a toast to yourself for just simply overcoming life?
One day I was on the phone with a close friend of mine and we were conversing about how we need to give ourselves more pats on the back for enduring and overcoming all the things we have.
As the conversation progressed, we both realized that we had discounted much of our past and current dealings and allowed the shoulda, coulda, woulda’s to overshadow the trials we’ve courageously endured. Thus, we diminished our current state and neglected to celebrate the ordinary.
While we were still conversing, I started thinking about the fact that there is a certain point in our lives where many of us stop receiving awards. So because we stop getting tangible rewards or verbal recognition we stop feeling like we’ve accomplished anything except the ordinary.
Which in our eyes, doesn’t seem worthy to be rewarded.
Adult Size Winners
At best, after a person finishes school if they get any sort of recognition it is in the workplace. And oftentimes this recognition is for the number of years they have shown up to work.
Now, there are other recognition programs out there that try to celebrate one’s work-life in other capacities, but a large number of people still do not receive these or various other frequent celebrations.
Some families, clubs and sports teams do provide such ad hoc recognition, but for the majority of us who either don’t participate in those things or have families who are celebratory then we are relegated to the workplace recognition.
What Tends To Happen
I mentioned this to my friend and said to him that typically, once a person has removed themselves from a structured environment that remits tangible rewards for “accomplishing” certain things — a person often neglects or overlooks their everyday accomplishments.
We, then, typically fall into the routine of life and downplay the many extraordinary things we go through in our lives. We do this because we don’t feel they ARE extraordinary. And because we don’t feel those things are extraordinary we don’t feel we’ve accomplished anything.
So there’s no need to celebrate.
Many times the sentiment is “what did I just do for the past four years?”
“Well, that was a waste!”
“I don’t feel like I’ve progressed in anything”
The ExtraOrdinary Reality
I believe we often feel this way because we’ve allowed the culture to sensationalize and exalt extremity when it comes to what extraordinary looks like. So what we often do is wait until our lives match up with what that as a cause for celebration.
While I get that the word extraordinary means something is “extra” ordinary and there’s cause for celebrating it, I also believe we can and should celebrate the ordinary. Even though we feel ordinary is mediocre, average or normal doesn’t mean we cannot celebrate its presence.
Because since when are we just relegated to celebrations that only involve the extraordinary? Who put the parameters and rules on what we can celebrate?
I think by honestly answering these questions it will help dismantle the guilt we often feel about celebrating the ordinary in our lives. It is my belief we feel we can’t celebrate the ordinary because we believe these are the things we are supposed to be doing.
Expectations Are No Grounds for Celebrating Right?
I remember growing up and my parents used to tell me, bringing home A’s and B’s is not a cause for celebration because I am supposed to be excelling at that level anyway.
Now, this is no shade to my folks by any means, because I get the sentiment they were trying to rear me into. However, I’m using this example to illuminate the fact that we often take this same approach throughout life and diminish any sense of accomplishment.
Because most things are just expected of us.
But this is a slippery slope because I dare say this mentality often leads to
- constant striving
- restlessness
- dissatisfaction in one’s own life
It causes one to constantly compete with oneself to outperform the ordinary because the ordinary just won’t cut it.
So by having this performance-based mentality to life it can perpetuate a lack of celebration in the ordinary. When you constantly feel the need to excel, perform or accomplish bigger and better things you often miss out on celebrating the everyday wins.
Everyday wins are including but are not limited to:
- ending the day in your right mind,
- being able to sustain a living (no matter how you do it)
- safely waking up in the morning
Yes…. this is pretty much the equivalent to everyday gratitude.
What Endangers Celebrating the Ordinary
I also think the danger of inspiration is another reason we don’t celebrate the ordinary.
The danger of inspiration happens when you look at various documentaries and excerpts that recap the lives of quote-unquote significant individuals in the course of history.
While you may feel inspired to some degree, consequently you also feel as though if your life does not result in the documentation of recourse then your life is not extraordinary.
While you feel inspired to do and pursue more things in life you also feel that what you’ve done thus far and what you’re currently doing isn’t enough.
Thus you feel nameless and namelessness feels gravely short of a life that is extraordinary.
So Let’s Look At It Again
Circling back to the friend that I was speaking on the phone with, I mentioned to him that he has much to celebrate as it pertained to the topic at hand (which was the completion of his Master’s degree).
Even though he felt like he didn’t learn much which caused him to discard celebrating, I said to him that he could celebrate the fact that over those four years it took him to finish what he was:
- able to keep and work his full-time job ….while
- going to school full time… while
- being a father and husband….and
- at the end of it… his family was still intact…and
- that he was still in his right mind
That is and of itself is an accomplishment and something to celebrate!
Once I pointed it out he said, “well I guess you’re right…I’ve been so engulfed in my own mind that I couldn’t see the external perspective on it. I guess I can celebrate that!”
As my birthday was approaching in just a few short weeks, I mentioned to him that based on our conversation I too had been encouraged to stop, reflect and celebrate my life and the many years of ordinary-ness.
Take a moment today or this week to stop, reflect and truly celebrate all of the ordinary things you have and continue to do in this life! Raise a glass and toast to that!
