I recently heard a radio interview in which a man stated that he believed the most profound freedom is found in the state of being perfectly ordinary. Ordinary is the place in which we simply are. We are not striving. We don't have to be better than anyone else. We do not seek recognition and reward. I have been thinking about this a lot lately. It is not an entirely new concept for me, but I guess I would say I was ready to hear this again and go deeper with it.
Are we a culture that values the ordinary?
What about children? Do college admission offices look for ordinary children for entrance?
Does ordinary feel constrictive to you, or expansive?
Ordinary: commonplace, usual, average, customary, regular.
What does extraordinary mean to you? Is it possible to sustain a sense of the extraordinary without becoming exhausted?
Is the ordinary life the place from which true creativity, a creativity without ego, grows?
Do you find freedom and rest in being ordinary? Or does it bring panic?
Can you see connection in the ordinary? Does being extraordinary perhaps separate you?
Can the extraordinary act exist without the ordinary person to perform it?
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The essence of it is to let yourself see how much clinging to how you want your life to be is nothing more than a process of self-torture. Drop it, and allow yourself to fall openly and unguardedly in love with your life as it is and everything in it.
Saki Santorelli "Heal Thyself: Lessons on Mindfulness in Medicine"
Umbrella, light, landscape, sky
There is no language of the holy.
The sacred lies in the ordinary.
Tao Te Ching