We are so often striving to achieve, searching for a 'best life', trying to find fulfilment yet we can so easily lose ourselves in these aims as we compare ourselves to others or hold ourselves to an unrealistic standard. Or worse we give up that which we love because we feel our contribution or success will be seen as too small or insignificant.
Here we go... we walk away from our ordinariness, forgetting that most endeavours start messy, arise out of our failures and flourish from our self acceptance. Whilst our lives may not be quite as expected maybe our offering has its own small beauty and resonance in the world.
We all have to acknowledge our different potential, resources and opportunities. We are not born into the same bodies, we have different privileges, different experiences and many things simply are not in our control.
If we are to live with any equilibrium we need to be aligned to our own inner barometer of accomplishment. Mine is not yours and yours will be an uncomfortable fit for me.
I lived for many years in close proximity to pain and illness and have had to rewrite the rules over and over to find creative ways to achieve my balance and it's undoubtedly hard. No-one enjoys swimming against this tide. But this is a life many people live, an ordinary life and it's remarkable in its ordinary way.
Life's challenges and the advancing years continually alter our bodies, our experiences and our confidence. We have to keep finding and re-finding the truth for ourselves.
Most of us are average, ordinarily, wonderfully average. And yes we will shed tears at the smallness and brevity of our lives and the near impossible task of saving any part of this world. Yet, I believe, accepting our ordinariness will save our day and it will be one of the most valuable offerings to friends, family and community. We are not served well by a separation from or rejection of our prosaic reality. In truth this ordinariness, this vulnerability, is our common humanity and our collective strength.
A small headline held my attention “other people’s outsides cannot be compared to your insides.” Reminding us that the carefully curated image of someone else’s life, someone else’s success is not their complete story and comparing yourself to this will be to the detriment of your self-worth and contentment.
What matters most as I travel into a new decade?
· I am kind in my intention to myself and others
· I find meaningful and creative endeavours
· I connect authentically and at no-one else's expense
· I tread softly on this earth, finding joy and purpose in the everyday
I want to say that I am enough, that I am valued and that I value my contribution; I want to be open and curious. I fail in all of this as much as I succeed but it makes it no less true or desirable.
Mindfulness offers me a framework in which to work with my challenges. It has given me an abundance of meaningful connections, a few treasured friends and the understanding and compassion to meet people in their ordinary lives; learning on the way how we all navigate the difficulty and distress of being human.
To be comfortable in our own skin: perhaps this will carry us the furthest and offer the deepest rewards; to integrate this self acceptance, a gentle, personal, daily calibration.
Maybe we can all celebrate this invisible, interlinking chain of ordinary humanness as a value beyond the pull or temptation to be noticed. Maybe this will have some resonance for you as it has for me.
Let's return to ourselves in all of our failing and fragility, our ordinary remarkableness is all the world needs. Don't give up on the smallness of your gift, we were made for this....
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