Living an Audaciously Mundane Life

Finding wonder in everyday life

Hello, Wonderful!

What if part of the reason there is so much loneliness and isolation in the world is that we’ve forgotten that most of life is mundane? What if we were both expecting too much out of life and failing to see the hidden moments of wonder?

In each post, I share a listicle of things that bring me joy (listicle + bliss = blissicle)

The three songs I’ve listened to the most this past week

1. Uneventful Days—Beck

2. Califormia Sun—Ramones

3. Short Skirt/Long Jacket—Cake

Living an Audaciously Mundane Life

We have created a culture that works to tear us apart from the inside. You’ve seen the stories and stats about how we are lonelier than ever, our teenagers are more neurotic than ever, and we hate each other more than ever. At the same time, thousands of books, podcasts, articles, and social media posts tell us how to be extraordinarily happy.

Scrolling on social media is an exercise in outrage. If social media apps were your only source of information, you would think that the only things we have an abundance of in this world are anger and inadequacy.

We scheme to make more money by being more productive with our side hustles. If you are not rich and taking fabulous vacations to fantastic destinations, you are losing.

Our culture tells us the only way to be happy is to be extraordinary. But unless you live in Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average, it’s impossible for most of us to live extraordinary lives.

We live in a time of deep dissatisfaction. In the United States, much of that dissatisfaction is driven by an intractable set of real problems. However, our huckster culture that peddles detox cures, minimalism, and get-rich-quick schemes also plays a significant part in generating a sense of isolation.

On top of this, we now have techbros trying to push AI as the next great solution to our economic woes. Of course, AI is just a high-tech game of three-card monte. We regular people will never win playing that game.

If all of this sounds bleak, you must understand there is hope. But the way out of this situation requires a change in your mindset.

When the game is rigged, the only way to win is not to play.

If you want to live a life of contentment and happiness, you need to be brave enough to fully enjoy a mundane existence.

You have to live an audaciously mundane life.

I’m a late Gen-Xer. That means my parents were Baby Boomers, and my grandparents were all survivors of the Great Depression and World War II. On my dad’s side, my grandparents were both teachers who also owned a gas station and grocery store in rural Idaho attached to their house. On my mom’s side, her stepfather was a master plasterer, and her mom was an administrative assistant at the state hospital.

My grandparents left little in the way of an inheritance when they passed. They were never rich, but they were some of the happiest people I’ve ever met because they knew how to be happy with enough. They knew how to find the small joys in life.

They were extraordinarily ordinary.

None of them ever ran a marathon or took a trip around the world. My dad’s mom kept a beautiful flower garden, and my mom’s mother raised a variety of vegetables in her backyard.

My grandpas would take me for long drives around the Idaho countryside on hot summer afternoons, telling me stories about their lives and showing me where our people used to live.

When my grandparents weren’t entertaining grandchildren or on road trips staying with relatives, they played cards or dominoes with their neighbors and friends from church.

There were no cruises or sports cars.

For most of human existence, that was how we all lived. We worked, played, and then we died. Life used to be simple.

The truth is, it still can be. If you are willing to lower your expectations and open your eyes, you can lead a wonderful life just being ordinary. Instead of longing for a life you’ve seen on Instagram, you can go outside and watch the sunset where you live for free every night.

Instead of working three side hustles, you can learn to shrink your lifestyle. Your work doesn’t have to change the world or be your life’s purpose. You can just work hard enough to pay the bills and put food on the table.

You can make paintings of what you can see outside your window, and never try to sell them on Etsy. Instead, you could paint for your own enjoyment, no matter how bad you are at it initially. When you have too many of your paintings around the house, you could give them away to friends and family.

There are so many things to see right where you live that you’ve yet to discover. There are flowers, birds, and buildings that are waiting for you to notice them. They may not make for a viral Instagram post, but if you open all of your senses, you will discover hidden wonder among the mundane things of your neighborhood.

My first experience with living an audaciously mundane life was the pandemic. We had four kids at home, and suddenly we had lots of time together. We learned to be more creative. We invented games, played outside more, and found peace doing chores.

Instead of seeing life as an endless cycle of drudgery, we saw each day as a fresh chance to make life interesting.

Since that time, I’ve worked to maintain a sense of simplicity. I take walks in my community every day looking for signs of wonder — and I always find them.

I don’t look to social media for inspiration. I am not striving to live the life of an influencer. Instead, I’m seeking the sacred in the mundane. When cooking for my family or doing the dishes, I focus on what I am doing instead of what I could be doing. I’m slowly shedding the envy and FOMO that make happiness impossible.

I also create something every day. It might be a poem or a collage. Most of the things I make are not for work or a side hustle. I create for the sheer joy of creating.

When I bring my attention to what is happening around me, I find joy in the mundane. My curiosity leads me to learn more about why the woodpeckers love to peck our chimney each spring. I notice patterns in the weather and weeds that I’ve missed, even though I've lived in the same place for more than twenty years.

From the outside, my life looks dull. I spend most of my day working on maintaining our home, raising children, and writing to pay the bills.

But in our home, there is always laughter. We have enough food to eat and live in one of the most beautiful places on the planet. Every day, I cook and clean — and every day I see something wonderful.

I may not ever be able to retire or visit all of the places in the world I long to see, but every day I draw breath, I can find contentment in my life and wonder in a world that is always changing, even as it rotates through the same four seasons each year.

It takes a certain kind of audacious courage to love living a mundane life. But if you’re brave enough to give up a life of endless striving and chasing hits of outrage, you can find peace and happiness in the ordinary.

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Be the weird you want to see in the world!

Cheers,