Sometimes it takes looking back to move forward.
What has happened to it all?
Crazy, some’d say
Where is the life that I recognize?
Gone away
But I won’t cry for yesterday
There’s an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way
To the ordinary world
I will learn to survive”
~ Excerpt from “Ordinary World” by Duran Duran
I returned from the grocery store last week, washed my hands, disinfected each container and piece of produce, washed my hands, put everything away, washed my hands, threw away all the packaging, sealed the trash bag, and washed my hands.
I sank into the sofa and said aloud, “I miss my ordinary days.”
I proceeded to indulge in a mini pity party. I sat, staring into space, letting my mind drift to what life looked like just a few weeks ago: free movement, travel, adventure, daily routines, comfort, calm, and the ability to spend time with and hug those whom I love.
An inkling of the past
The lyrics to a song I once knew by heart began to open inside my memory, petal by petal. First a fragment or two, then the melody. Then an entire verse landed:
“But I won’t cry for yesterday
There’s an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way
To the ordinary world
I will learn to survive”
I grabbed my laptop, found the Duran Duran video performance of “Ordinary World,” and pressed play.
Back I went to 1993—when the song was first released, in a haze of reflective nostalgia.
I had recently returned from living in London and had launched the Literacy Council of Highlands. I was in uncharted territory—not only did I not know anything about the creation and sustaining of a nonprofit, I didn’t know a thing about how to teach literacy.
I remember I was nervous, but I had faith. I didn’t have a blueprint, but I knew I could create one. I was initially on my own, but I could quickly find supportive, intelligent volunteers to join the effort. I didn’t know how I could devote the majority of my time to an unpaid position, but I decided I would figure that out later.
Finding and creating my (extra)ordinary world
I came back to 2020 and sat up straight.
“I can find and recreate my ordinary world,” I said to myself. “I just have to go back and get 1993 Susie and bring her forward. And while I’m at it, I’ll get 5-year old Susie who lived comfortably in her imagination; plucky, 6-year old Susie who skipped the second grade; 10-year old Susie who climbed and jumped out of trees, trying to fly; 15-year old Susie who explored Asian streets solo; 21-year old Susie who backpacked through Europe; and…on and on.
I could gather up, like Easter eggs in a basket, all the qualities that I exemplified over the course of my life that I desired to call forward and live out loud now with focused intention. And in doing so, I could step right inside my newly-crafted, ordinary world and navigate with clarity and purpose.
And then I remembered Harvard social psychologist, Dr. Ellen Langer.
In 1981, Langer and her colleagues took two groups of men in their 70s and 80s to an old monastery in New Hampshire and turned the clock back 22 years to 1959. One group stayed for one week; they were asked to remember life as it was in the 1950s, and pretend they were young men again. The second group was told to simply reminisce about that era, but stay in the present.
Here is what happened, as detailed in an article in Harvard Magazine:
“Before and after the experiment, both groups of men took a battery of cognitive and physical tests, and after just one week, there were dramatic positive changes across the board. Both groups were stronger and more flexible. Height, weight, gait, posture, hearing, vision—even their performance on intelligence tests had improved. Their joints were more flexible, their shoulders wider, their fingers not only more agile, but longer and less gnarled by arthritis. But the men who had acted as if they were actually back in 1959 showed significantly more improvement. Those who had impersonated younger men seemed to have bodies that actually were younger.”
Whoa.
We can recreate ourselves anew.
Not only can we find and create our ordinary worlds, we can step right inside. From the reshaping of our ordinary world, we can birth an extraordinary one.
So, the questions are…whom do we want to be, and what kind of world do we want to create?
Get out your trusty journal and return to the times you embodied and lived the very characteristics you want to call forward now. What is on your list? Courage? Playfulness? Unconditional love? The knowing that everything will be ok? Problem-solving acumen? Fierce creativity? Scrappiness? An overall sense of calm and poise in the face of uncertainty?
Go back and cherry pick your favorite aspects of your Past Self and immerse yourself in each. Become that person now. Begin each day with a reminder of your custom-crafted suit of desired qualities. How did those versions of you think? Move? Spend time? Take care of yourself? Take action? Feel in your own skin?
Some say that hardships form character. I believe hardships reveal character and remind us of whom we forgot we are.
We can remember just how creative and powerful and generous we are. We can become whomever we desire.
These times are not just for surviving. They are for thriving. This time can be our finest hour.
