I’ve written a lot on my Facebook page the last month. Another blogger has done challenges for new writers encouraging them to write 500 words a day for a month. They don’t have anyone edit them or even post them publicly, he just wants them to write.
I’ve been at this writing thing for nearly two years now, so instead of writing in private, I wanted to post 30 straight days of short essays on Facebook.
I’ll unpack more of what I learned later, but as I look back on the last month, I notice it was a lot more like a farm than a mountain.
Let me explain.
Oftentimes, we’re hoping for the huge mountaintop experiences. Promotions, babies, new houses, vacations. And those are awesome when/if they happen.
But day by day and month by month, life is predominantly mundane. More like a farm. At least it is for me.
Lots of days and lots of weeks stack up, pile on top of each other, normal rhythm after normal rhythm. Some great conversations and awesome moments sprinkled in for sure, but more mundane than mountaintop.
Lots of tilling the soil, working the ground, praying for rain.
The thing about mundane is that it doesn’t have to equate to boring. Lots would assume it does. I’d argue that the mundane is where the real magic and memories can be made. After all, the mundane is the predominant reality we’ll face day in and day out.
The farmer puts in work, gets up early, keeps tilling the ground. Whatever little patch of land he’s been entrusted with. Most times, my guess is, he doesn’t complain, doesn’t gripe, doesn’t compare. He just does the work and looks forward to the harvest. He doesn’t daydream about mountaintops and take his eye of the corn rows.
The mundane is where it’s messy, gritty and where real life happens. The small, un-instagrammable (made it up, yes) moments that don’t flood the like button.
The mundane is nothing huge, amazing or extraordinary. But it’s good.
