You don’t need to watch any of the links that follow to get the messages:
“You don’t need to be outstanding…"
“Ordinary is close enough.”
"Lead a life of cheerful desperation, and all will be well…"
Links for the brave…
If you want to walk free of the PRESSURE to be Someone Special, start listening to Alain de Botton (School of Life on YouTube – the 8 rules are hilarious https://youtu.be/1JCJVaK48RM ) and maybe Jordan Peterson. I’m listening to Mark Manson’s audible version of his book, “The Subtle Art of Not Giving A….” The last word of the title is a rude one. In fact, that rude word is used to punctuate the whole message. How vulgar! How delicious!
As a fine, upstanding, ‘Special’ member of a local Evangelical Charismatic Church, I have to say, “I’m *king (insert that word) loving it.” (Way better than McDonalds’ trademark term!) Perhaps the best example of these philosophies fused into a powerful advert is Dollar Shave Club, making the most of less marketing fluff, and in the process delivering the best marketing I’ve ever seen. If you’re easily offended, don’t watch: https://youtu.be/ZUG9qYTJMsI
Back in the room.
Today, on LinkedIn, I was told how “Super-excited” one of my contacts was to be delivering some life-changing intervention. I didn’t get as far as the intervention as I reached for the bucket. When did “exciting” cease to be superlative enough?
Now, allegedly, I need to be “super-pumped” to share “awesome” stuff with you.
Yeah, right.
Do you know I’m British?
The British don’t get super-pumped, nor do we get super-excited. The only super we have is superannuation.
I'm, then, somewhat keen to share what follows...
Looking at me, you may reasonably wonder if I posed as a model for various figures of the Laughing Buddha I’ve seen in Chinese restaurants for years, I think I’m turning more Buddhist. Buddhist teaching includes the baseline of “Life is suffering!” or at least, “Life is unsatisfactory,” “Life is disappointing,” “Life is pain,” depending on how you translate the word, “Duḥkha.”
What REALLY got me laughing literally out loud with Alain de Botton’s 8 Rules was the question, “In what ways are you mad?” No offence meant here, but in the softer understanding of “mad” as meaning “a bit bonkers”, I really did giggle… as anyone who has seen my taste in trousers would attest to.
Alain asserts no one has had a ‘normal’ childhood, and therefore we are all ‘unbalanced’! I hope you like this too because I LOVE it! But the one that really hit home was rule 7: Cheerful Despair!
Thoreau said, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” (*Guess that lets the women off the hook.) Now I’ve decided to lead a life of “Cheerful Desperation!” And I have to say, that makes me feel liberated! “Disappointment is at the heart of the human experience,” says Alain de Botton, and for once it’s nice not to try and source my ‘suffering’ back to some imagined failing in my moral character or life’s track-record. Instead, I’m keeping an eye out for, “…many small, sweet things… a sunny day, a drifting cloud, dawn and dusk, a tender look…” and I’m quoting Alain there from that wonderful video, “The 8 Rules of Life.”
The Hubble Telescope was 30 years old this week, and one thing it teaches us is that we are somewhat reassuringly insignificant within the context of the majesty of Space and Time. Time to try less harder and give yourself space to, “Be More You!” (Thank you, Kim, for that!)
Here’s to a life of ordinariness wrapped in cheerful desperation, and free from the need to inject disinfectant into anything! Just chill.
