The inspiration for this article came from soup. As I was eating my soup the other day, I thought about how awesome it was to have tomato soup on a rainy day—how soup fills you up and keeps you warm, and how it brightens up an otherwise dreary atmosphere. Then I realized how lame that sounded, and then I realized that I didn’t care.
I think for many people around my age the pressure to have an “interesting” life is insurmountable, especially in the age of social media. We can all see constantly what others are up to, and oftentimes that leaves us comparing our lives. Who’s going out every weekend and having the best time ever? Who seems to have hundreds of friends? Who’s hooking up with someone new from week to week? Who’s living their life to the fullest and taking advantage of their youth, and who is wasting it away eating soup on a rainy Tuesday?
I want to make it clear that doing all the things I mentioned above is not bad. For some people, living a fast-paced life is really fulfilling and brings them joy. However, always chasing the next amazing thing to do is not necessarily sustainable for most of us; and the reality is that most of life is not glamorous or fit for Instagram.
Here is where the boring shit comes in. For most of us, life is filled to the brink with the mundane. It’s saturated in: “How would you like your coffee?” “I’m going to be late for class!” and “Damn, this soup is really good.” As a college student with boring hobbies like reading and writing (ugh, imagine) I used to resent my grandmotherly inclinations. I have had times when I was at war with myself for not going out more and not participating in hookup culture. I’ve found myself disappointed at times that I haven’t built the crazy life I expected to have when I was a high school junior dreaming of college.
Recently I’ve had a change of heart. I’ve started to embrace the aspects of myself that others might find boring because ultimately they are what make me happy. And I think, on some level, holding on to the joy that little things bring you day-to-day is the only way to sustain yourself in this life. That might just be the case for me, I don’t really know, but I really think that letting the boring shit that life throws at you make you happy without guilt is extremely freeing.
Some of the things that have been making me happy recently: trying out a new mascara that is way better than my old one, doing homework in Bailey (it’s really pretty in there), going outside more often despite the horrors of Western New York spring, writing workshop letters, brown sugar shaken espressos, afternoon yoga, naps (I literally think about napping all the time it’s so awesome), the poetry readings for one of my classes, watching Survivor with my suitemates, falling asleep to the sound of rain…
When you start to list out all these “boring” things that make your life better, you start to realize how important they all are to you and how ugly life would be without them. With this in mind, I impart unto you the stoic wisdom of a nineteen-year-old going on sixty: a simple life is not inherently a bad life. Now go enjoy some soup!