Making Peace — Part One—Making Peace With Our Lives
There is a peculiar habit we fall into, often without noticing. We begin to divide our days into the hours we welcome and the hours we merely endure. We look forward to the quiet afternoon, the unfinished book, the work we love, and regard everything that stands between us and those pleasures as an interruption.
And so we hurry through the ordinary business of living, waiting for the moment when life might finally become our own.
Yet I have begun to wonder how much of a perfectly good life can be lost in the waiting.
There are, of course, things we must do that we would rather not. There are errands to run, meals to prepare, appointments to keep, and responsibilities that arrive with remarkable indifference to our plans. The washing must be done whether the sun is shining or not, and the bills have never shown much consideration for a beautiful afternoon.
We attend to these things because we must, often with our thoughts already wandering toward something more agreeable.
When this is finished, we tell ourselves, then I can get on with my day.
But isn't it curious that we should speak of getting on with our day when so much of it has already passed?
I think we sometimes imagine that somewhere beyond our obligations lies another sort of life altogether. One with uninterrupted mornings, leisurely afternoons, and sufficient time for everything we hold dear. We picture ourselves moving through it with a lightness that seems impossible amid our present responsibilities.
And the world does little to discourage this imagining.
We are forever being told that the secret to a fulfilling life is simply to discover what we want and pursue it with enough determination. Find your passion. Follow your dreams. Make the life you have always wanted.
There is something wonderfully appealing about such advice. Who wouldn't like to believe that the life of their choosing is waiting just beyond a little courage and hard work?
But life, I have found, is seldom quite so accommodating.
We may know precisely what we want and still have responsibilities that cannot simply be set aside. There are people who depend upon us, commitments we have made, and practical matters that require our attention regardless of where our hearts would rather be.
These things are not necessarily evidence that we have failed to pursue our dreams. Often, they are evidence that we have a life already in progress.
And surely that life deserves some consideration, too.
It is easy to become so occupied with the life we hope to have that we begin to regard the life we have as an inconvenience. We resent the hours spent working when we would rather be creating. We begrudge the ordinary tasks that take us away from our pleasures. We imagine how much happier we might be if only our days could be arranged a little differently.
Yet I wonder whether we have been looking at these hours rather unfairly.
After all, much of what we cherish is quietly supported by things we seldom think to appreciate.
The work that occupies our mornings may provide the security that allows us to enjoy our evenings. The household tasks that seem never-ending are part of caring for the place in which our happiest memories are made. Even the familiar routines that appear to offer so little excitement lend a certain steadiness to our days.
We may not particularly enjoy every part of them. Indeed, I think it would be rather unreasonable to expect that we should.
But perhaps enjoyment is not the only measure of a worthwhile hour.
Sometimes, with a little imagination, we may even discover that an obligation we have long regarded as a nuisance can be made to serve something we love.
A necessary journey might become an opportunity for quiet thought. A routine task might be accompanied by music or a pleasant conversation. An afternoon devoted to practical matters might leave another afternoon wonderfully free for more creative pursuits.
Nothing about the obligation itself has necessarily changed. Yet our experience of it has.
Of course, there are difficulties in life that cannot be softened by a cheerful outlook, and burdens that ought to be lessened when we have the means to do so. Contentment need not require us to pretend otherwise. There is no virtue in calling something lovely simply because we cannot avoid it.
But there may be wisdom in asking whether everything we dislike must also be something we resent.
Perhaps we can acknowledge that a task is tiresome without allowing it to spoil the day. Perhaps we can wish for more leisure without regarding our responsibilities as enemies of our happiness. Perhaps we can look forward to tomorrow without being quite so eager to be finished with today.
I find that last thought especially worth considering.
For life has a way of passing rather quietly while we are occupied with waiting for it to improve.
The children grow older. The seasons come and go. The rooms we once dreamed of furnishing become familiar places, filled with the ordinary evidence of our living. And the days we thought of as merely something to get through become, in time, the very days we remember.
How strange it would be to look back upon them with tenderness, having spent so many of them wishing they were over.
I do not suppose we can learn to welcome every inconvenience, nor would I particularly want to try. There will always be mornings when we would rather stay home, chores we would happily pass along to someone else, and plans interrupted by the small demands of daily life.
Nor do I think we must abandon our ambitions in order to become content. There is great pleasure in having something to work toward, in imagining what might be possible, and in watching a cherished dream slowly take shape.
But perhaps we needn't make our happiness wait upon its arrival.
Perhaps we can pursue the life we hope for while learning to appreciate the life that makes its pursuit possible.
I should like to become a little more generous toward these ordinary hours. To remember that the necessary things are not always separate from the beautiful ones. That a life can be rich and satisfying even when it contains work we would rather not do. And that happiness need not wait patiently at the far end of every obligation.
Perhaps the life we have been longing for is not another life at all, but this one, regarded with a little more kindness.
For the hours we spend wishing away are not separate from our lives.
They are our lives.
And perhaps there is more beauty to be found in them than we have allowed ourselves to see.