Today I stumbled upon a new life goal: to be an illuminator of magic in the ordinary. This way of being comes seemingly easily to (in my opinion) the best of parents. Such parents find enchantment in every move their extraordinarily unskilled children make. They celebrate the effort involved in the creation of every tiny movement, drawing, word. This astonishment in the ordinary is unfortunately short lived.
By high school, the primary behaviors that are routinely noticed can be categorized as either misbehavior or rare talent. If you happen to lack rare talent, good luck getting noticed unless you screw up.
We lament the death of chivalry, the deterioration of youthful innocence, the scarcity of passionate devotion amongst students, employers, and spouses. Yet we rarely celebrate these things. Teenagers don’t receive medals upon opening doors for the elderly. Celebrities might receive attention for performing outrageous wealth-dependent “acts of kindness”, but even they are far more likely to make the news for dancing half-naked on a stage.
Perhaps the world isn’t lacking doers of good but rather spectators of good. Moments of ordinary brilliance disappear undocumented all day, everyday leaving their genius creators at risk for feeling insignificant and maybe even invisible. Today I was reminded of my ability to breathe life into those who might feel insignificant and indivisible simply by noticing moments during which they show up as heroes in their own lives.
The single mom who stumbles out of bed to get her kids ready for school after barely sleeping the night before. Brilliant.
The dad with an hour commute who works his ass off doing menial labor to feed his family. Brilliant.
The college student who attends Friday morning chemistry class after Thursday night’s party. Brilliant.
The recovering addict who goes to the gym instead of using her drug of choice after an stressful day. Brilliant.
If the aforementioned heroes failed to show up as such, we’d sure as hell notice. We’d criticize them for being heartless, lazy, uninvolved, and addicted. We habitually ignore goodness because it’s expected. It feels unnecessary to applaud that which teenagers, parents, and employees are “supposed to do.”
But what if we did? What if we celebrated moments of ordinary brilliance and strived to ensure that genius acts of menial kindness and bravery never went undocumented. Perhaps we’d see more of them. Perhaps the doers of ordinary brilliance would rediscover meaning in their previously insignificant lives.
Today I was reminded that the world doesn’t need more heroes. It simply needs more spectators of good, spectators who make commonplace responsibility appear magical. Because it is.
unEDited. 