Ordinary lives of ordinary people.

We’re all ordinary people who want to live extraordinary lives. “Extraordinary” depends on how you choose to describe it. In literal sense, it means

anything other than the ordinary but when we say “extraordinary lives”, we mean different and in most cases, better than the rest of the world. Who said that ordinary is not enough? And that once you’ve reached the “extraordinary” you’ve worked so hard for, it will not soon become “ordinary” if you keep doing it over and over again? 

How often is it that you watched a movie or read a book and thought “oh I wish my life was as interesting as theirs.” or “I wish I had more fun stories to tell.” It is natural for us to feel this way because we as humans are never satisfied and no matter how much we have, it’s just not enough. Every time we’re reminded of how dull our lives are, we are disappointed. “Dull” is the definition we choose to give to our lives because we have the freedom to call it anything. The same life, if you look at it a little differently, can be called “vivid” or “lively”. 

If I asked you to tell me a memory from your life, I bet you will try to search for the most extraordinary thing that happened to you, like probably a prize that you’ve won, or trip that you went on. It’s very unlikely that you will pick a memory that is rather common. Like sitting at the dinner table with your family everyday, finishing school work early so you can go outside and play or eagerly waiting for the lunch break so you can finally gossip with your friends. These stories wouldn’t be your first pick because these stories are too ordinary. They happen in everyone’s lives. But those are the times we will truly miss later on in life because we’re habituated to them.  When I look back at the short life that I’ve lived so far, I remember most of the days being similar. That’s something we usually do not want. We want variety in life. We strive for it these days. But just think of the monotonous lives our parents and their parents have lived just to provide for us. Having to work so hard for so long and not being able to complain about it just so you could have a life that is not as tedious as theirs. So in comparison, how extravagant are our lives? 

When I cook a good meal for my family, when I stay up all night with my cousins, when I wake up early at a sleepover to watch the sunrise with my friends, when my friends and I take the long route home just to spend a little extra time with each other or sitting in the living room with my family and talking about how my day was, these are just few of the many little memories that wouldn’t hold any value in the material world but for me, they mean everything. It’s the little “ordinary” moments like these that make our lives worth it. We want our lives to be extraordinary and in the search of something so complicated, we forget to appreciate the simple things. Dig deep into your life and you’ll find that these ordinary moments were probably worth it after all.