Life Less Ordinary

     Once again, I am on the verge of a major life change. I don't know where I'll be going next, but thinking about moving away from Bratislava as well as the general trajectory of my life over the past couple years has brought up some thoughts that I've been quietly mulling over for months, but didn't really know how to express.
     But then, I was reading this article earlier today, and it helped solidify some of the language I've been wanting to use concerning these ideas. It also gave me something concrete to respond to which resulted in a (rather tenuous) conclusion, or at least a viable foundation for further exploration. In the article, after coming across an urging to live an extraordinary life, the author asks his wife if she thinks they do.
     Her response is no. They, like many modern parents, spend most of their days at work. They run errands, watch TV, and try and squeeze as much time in together with their son as they can on evenings and weekends. There is nothing remarkable or unusual about their lives, nothing extraordinary. But, and this is the important part, they are extraordinarily lucky to be living the lives they are. She also acknowledges that this 'luck' does not mean they should not be striving for a more extraordinary life.
   
     This is my response: all our lives are extraordinary. Like many young people living abroad, I fled the country as soon as I could, not because I don't love it, but because I didn't want to get stuck. I didn't want to get stuck in a job I didn't like, or find myself back in school because I didn't know what else to do with myself. I wanted adventure, to try new things, to meet new people. I wanted to be able to say that I had lived abroad. And in all honesty, I felt sorry for the people who didn't. I felt sorry for the people who got married right out of college, settled down somewhere with jobs, bought a house, maybe even started a family.
     How sad, I thought. I would hate being tied down like that so early in life. Yes, someday I want to get married and create a life for myself and my family someplace I love, but not at 22. Or 23. Or probably 24 or 25 either. At that point in my life, that wasn't something that appealed to me, so I judged other people's decisions through my own restless lens. As pompous as this sounds, I thought they were missing out on the kind of extraordinary life I was living.
   
     But here's the thing. Those people, who married their high school/college sweetheart, who have steady jobs; they are living their own adventure. Just because they never left the country, state, or even city where they were raised, doesn't mean they're not living an extraordinary life. Their adventures building careers, continuing their education, raising a family, surrounding themselves with comfort and familiarity, none of that is less important than my globe-trotting. In many ways, it may be even more important.
     It is undeniable that I am having experiences and facing challenges living and working abroad that none of my friends at home can fully understand. But it is equally undeniable that their lives are just as foreign to me as mine is to them. I may recognize where they are living their lives, but that doesn't mean I know everything about them, or that they're less exciting than my own.
   
     I've chosen to live the kind of life everyone says you should live in your 20's. I'm making decisions for myself, I left the US to go work abroad, basically all of my essential belongings fit into a suitcase and a backpack, and I don't have strings tying me down. But as wonderful as it is to have that freedom, it's an incredibly hard life to live, especially for someone as introverted as I am. Constantly having to make new friends, get used to new cities, learn new languages, facing trial by fire at a new job every six months, it's exhausting, and I've found myself envying the people I pitied two years ago.
     Yet even now, knowing the challenges of living abroad, I still have this fear of living what I saw as an ordinary life. I'm afraid of going home. I'm afraid that, finding myself back in Minneapolis, surrounded by my wonderful childhood friends, and the sights, sounds, and smells of home, I will never want to leave. I'm afraid that I will grow content with what is there, and no longer have the desire to adventure out into the unknown. As much as constant transitioning and culture shock have lost their novelty, the idea of losing the desire to do more with my life is even more debilitating.
     But here's what the article forced me to admit: routine and familiarity are not the enemies of adventure. If you don't have those things, the adventures don't stand out. Choosing to get married early doesn't limit your options, it gives you another set of dreams to live out together. My way is no better than anyone else's, no matter what the internet or my own impulses might say.
   
     An extraordinary life does not come from what you do, but rather how you do it. Extraordinary moments can be found in the simplest joys, the ones that take your breath away with astonishment, laughter, or love.
   
     So here is my promise to myself: as long as I'm home, however long that ends up being, I am going to find the extraordinary moments in the familiarity of life in Minneapolis. Instead of constantly longing to be elsewhere, of searching for some elusive 'other', I am going to savor the things I know and have loved for years. All our lives are extraordinary, because life itself is extraordinary. The simple fact of our existence, of us being us and not some other combination of DNA, is mind-bogglingly unlikely. So even though it may not seem like our lives are anything special, it's absurd to think of them as anything but.
     By no means am I saying I want to grow complacent with living at home, I certainly will be looking forward to once again setting off into the wild blue yonder. But instead of treating it as a time that somehow doesn't matter because I'm not off doing anything especially interesting or exciting, I want to treat it as a time of appreciation, of rediscovery. I want to find the extraordinary in the everyday, and strive to create more extraordinary moments through my own thoughts and actions.
     
     Extraordinary lives don't come from wandering around the world or wild adventures, they come from a desire to appreciate the moments that really matter, whether that's the pride that comes with a job well done, spending time with your family and friends, or taking treks to places no one you know has ever heard of.
   
     For those of us blessed to have the assurance of safety, shelter, and sustenance on a daily basis, there is no reason not to value the life we are living, regardless of the life we would ideally be living. So while you should never stop striving to live a life you love to live, be sure to pause every now and then and find the joys in the life you're living now.