Ordinary to extraordinary

On Tuesday I had the most ordinary day. I woke up and went to the Utah Opera Production Studios and worked on wigs, after that I had some extra time before yoga and went to the book store and purchased some items that were not necessary but desired. Then I drove to yoga where I met some new friends and had a pleasant practice, then raced to the salon and worked for seven hours. I found myself driving home in bliss, excitingly happy by how such an ordinary day felt so extraordinary.

I meditated on this idea of how a simple day left me feeling like I went on some grand adventure. Virginia Woolf wrote in her novel Mrs. Dalloway, about how one woman having an ordinary day held a variety of possibilities that she could never imagine. I felt like I was living a story, a story where the day held a vast number of outcomes that my mind couldn’t fathom. The day was ordinary and yet was an adventure, it felt exciting and boundless, like anything and everything could happen. The more I pondered over this sense of adventure I started thinking how everyday held this possibility, everyday we wake up and it’s a new day, with a new sense of being, even in the mundane and routine we have the option to fall into the idea of, “same shit different day” or we can look upon the day as, “a new day a new sense of possibility”. We have the choice whether we want to wake up and have an adventure or wake up and live the life we lived the previous day, and the day before that, and the day before that.

Joseph Campbell speaks about the hero and how the hero is important in any story, or rather any mythology. The hero teaches us to believe in something, or to even believe in ourselves. The hero is important in any story because the hero is the one who chose's to go on the adventure, they chose to fight for the greater good, to sacrifice their self for a better tomorrow. We are the writers of our adventure, we chose whether to be the hero in our own lives. Everyday we have the choice to say, “I don’t want to today.” or say, “I get to today”, or “I chose to today.” Changing the perspective from, ‘I don’t want to’, to ‘I get to’ shifts the thought process from the mundane to the adventure.

I was discussing this idea of adventure with a friend of mine who works in retail, she said how can an adventure come out of selling the same shit to the same people all day, every day? I told her to shift the perspective, say, “I get to sell… to people”. The next day I spoke to my friend and she shared with me how in the morning she didn’t want to go to work but she said to herself over and over, “I get to go to work, I get to go to work, I get to go to work.” That day she realized the reason why she always has the same customers coming in is because she touched their lives, the customers love her because she makes them feel good. She sold more products that day then she had any other day in the past.

A slight shift in perspective is what holds us from living the same life every day or living each day as a new adventure. This shift is what makes an ordinary day change into the most extraordinary day.

I ask you, what do you get to do with your day?

DJH