Lets face it; everyone has those days where a whole lot of nothing happens. Nothing gets accomplished, the snooze button is hit multiple times, you barley leave the bed (let alone get dressed), the television is never turned off, and the pizza delivery boy makes constant appearances at your front door. Now for a country that prides itself on hard work, hearing about these types of days makes many people squirm. “Ohh, what a waste!” we all think, “So much we could have done!” However, the real issue here isn’t “wasting a day,” but rather that people feel a day can be wasted at all! It is a concept that many find hard to understand, but we have to realize that days such as the previous described are necessary and vital in every single persons life. Much may not happen or get accomplished but days like this still play a vital role in the story of your life. One must realize that even though a day may not consist of much action, a day still existed.
What makes and event or a day spectacular, extraordinary, or amazing? It’s no debate that when something special or out of the ordinary happens it is celebrated. But imagine if something spectacular happens everyday of the year or if something terrible or exciting were commonplace. Would it still be special? The fact is, without the ordinary there is no extraordinary. Without the simple, there is no complicated. Without the boring there is no exciting. Without ordinary, we have nothing to compare extraordinary to. People choose to brush off the everyday events of our lives without giving them second thought, but in reality they are more telling and vital than anything else. Our lives consist of ordinary, and that’s ok! Ordinary keeps us going, keeps us alive, and keeps us thriving.
Everything that happens during our day, during our week, during our life is of great importance because everything and anything we do affects our lives in one way or the other, whether it be immediate or somewhere later down the line. No matter how miniscule the action might be, it is important and necessary in our life and being. Think of it this way, the position in which you slept last night may not seem very significant upon first thought, but in reality it can affect you in ways you may never think of. For example, perhaps last night you slept on you neck oddly and when you awoke in the morning you are in a significant amount pain, enough so to make a trip down to the local convenient store. While you are waiting in the checkout line, browsing through the magazines, you happen to bump into an old friend whom you haven’t seen in years. Because of this, you decide to have lunch together and you end up catch up for hours. Now think if you had slept in a different position the previous night. Running into your friend would have never happened and you would have missed out on catching up. In other words, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Yes, Newton’s law applies not only to physics but to life as well.
The actions of our lives cause chain reactions, affecting everything and anything from that point on. So you see, nothing you can do is unimportant. From the words you utter, to the books you read, from the juice you drink, the perfume you use— it all matters. Everything in your life has significance, whether big or small. And admittedly, some things are obviously more important than others and some events might make a bigger impact on your life, but nothing is irrelevant. Everything and anything that we do during the day plays a part in the greater aspects of our lives and it is important to not disregard that. To many, our day-to-day lives may seem like nothing, but without it we are nothing.
So with this in mind, take solace in the little things. Be appreciative, notice your day-by-day habits, notice the people on the streets, the graffiti on the walls, the gum stuck under your table. Question the ordinary and appreciate all it has to offer, because the “ordinary” tells more about your life than anything else possibly could. Freak accidents or fantastical events might make great headlines, but they don’t truly represent your life and your being. So remember to not over look the “little things.” What are your habits, what are you accustomed to, what are your quirks and your idiosyncrasies? If you can explore these questions you might be surprised at all you can learn about yourself and the world you live in.
Hi Alison,
ReplyDeleteLooking over your posts now, it occurs to me that you might want to consider re-visiting your response on blogging as a potential topic for your essay. You make some compelling observations, stated outright and embedded in your textual experimentation, that could be utilized in your analysis of the everyday. If it interests you, you might consider other digital writing spaces too--Facebook, Twitter, etc.--as a way of getting at the everyday. As you note in your post, this kind of writing functions quite differently than writing on paper. It is a mode of inhabiting the everyday that happens in a space where the body can't exist. Because the technology is so ubiquitous, it could be a useful way of getting at some of the ideas we discussed in class. It also provides a very concrete context for thinking about everyday life in the 21st century. Don't feel you must write about this: It just occurred to me to suggest it, since your post on the topic was thought provoking. In any case, I look forward to seeing what you come up with.
--S