The Extraordinary Valor of Ordinary Life

Once upon a time, I sought adventures. With an imagination fueled by the biographies and stories of explorers and war heroes and scientists and athletes, I saw my future self climbing mountains, fighting enemies, making discoveries, and winning races. Through books of fiction, I sailed with pirates, solved vexing mysteries, and carried the ring to Mordor. Like many children (at least of my era), I also played extensively outdoors, often engaging in some version of combat or some sort of made-up quest that seemed at the time tremendously important.

Perhaps it was partly my desire for adventure that led to my general interest in the military and to my eventual joining the U.S. Navy in particular. In terms of travel and adventure, the Navy has not disappointed. I’ve crossed the Equator and transited the Panama Canal. I’ve sailed through the Strait of Hormuz and the Strait of Malacca. I’ve ridden a camel; I’ve climbed Mt. Fuji. I’ve seen the Southern Cross in the sky and bioluminescence in the sea. I’ve gotten to know countries and cultures and people that I never would’ve encountered otherwise.

I’m grateful for those experiences and opportunities. Yet as I’ve gotten older, I’ve begun to question to some extent the way in which I used to prize such adventures, the value I placed on experiences simply because they were novel or in a distant land. And I don’t think my changing perspective is due to me turning into some sort of middle-aged curmudgeon who longs for the Shire (which may or may not be the case).

I’d like to think it’s because I've started to see more of the adventure that’s around us all the time, even in our most ordinary moments. And more importantly, I’ve come to see and appreciate the courage it takes to persist through the simple, routine, maybe even boring circumstances of life.

Photo by Matt Bennett on Unsplash

The Most Daunting of Adventures

When I used to think about adventures, I used to think primarily about physically going somewhere different and deliberately encountering something unknown, perhaps something even a bit dangerous. And sure, those types of things are adventures. People don’t train for and compete in The Iditarod because those 938 miles behind a pack of sled dogs are on a big treadmill in a climate-controlled warehouse somewhere. They do it because there’s a thrill that comes with the challenge and the unpredictability of it all.

Yet by categorizing those types of experiences and only those types of experiences as adventures—and furthermore by associating those types of experiences as the only ones worthy of praise and a sense of personal accomplishment or glory—we run the risk of missing the adventures right in front of our faces each day. And what’s worse is that we fail to recognize the true valor it takes to carry out with honor the often slow grind of everyday life.

The most daunting of adventures, I suggest, aren’t those we often see people post about on social media. They typically aren’t the types of things that we would even think to share with others as some sort of accomplishment. Instead they involve the sorts of things we hardly mention much less brag about: enduring boring aspects of our work, paying bills, navigating marriage, parenting children, caring for relatives, doing chores, celebrating at weddings, and mourning at funerals. But I argue that such things are accomplishments, and perhaps they’re even tougher to achieve with a cheerful, honest heart over and over, day in and day out—and they’re perhaps even more worthy of recognition—than traveling to somewhere exotic or finishing some test of physical endurance.

We build statues and write books and tell stories to commemorate those who do things that are easily identifiable as extraordinary: Nobel laureates, world leaders, titans of industry, and winners of the Heisman Trophy. There’s perhaps nothing inherently wrong with that. Yet in a sense, what’s more daunting:

Single-mindedly pursuing scientific discoveries as a career or stepping aside from such a career to care for one’s ailing mother?

Training for world-class performance in a sport or spending decades helping children learn character, integrity, and how to work hard by teaching youth basketball?

Sacrificing personal relationships and geographic stability to be a business executive or persisting in a trade that provides for a simple-yet-adequate life with several children?

None of this is to imply that these choices are mutually exclusive. But I do argue specifically that what’s simple and seemingly ordinary is oftentimes just as hard if not harder than what we typically venerate as difficult and extraordinary.

The woman who spends hours every day helping to take care of her brother with special needs, the single dad who gets his kids out of the door on time for school while holding down two jobs, the old man who visits his wife’s grave everyday, the married couple whose commitment to their children is rivaled only by their commitment to each other: Should we not be casting statues and naming buildings after them? Even if we don’t, we should at least recognize that they deserve it.

A Big Lie and a Big Secret

It seems to me sometimes that we’ve told ourselves, perpetuated, and believed a big lie about what constitutes the extraordinary, defining it implicitly and solely as that which is easily recognized as unusual. It’s true that we do need people to climb mountains, fight enemies, make discoveries, and win races. Someone needs to dare to sail among the pirates, solve vexing mysteries, and carry the ring to Mordor.

That’s all potentially fine and good and laudable. Let’s just not kid ourselves into thinking that there’s nothing valorous about facing the mundane trenches of adult life upright, because there certainly is. If we only scratch beneath the surface, we can see unusual courage in the face of life’s many rough edges. If we really start to notice, we’ll see it everywhere.

If the big lie is that adventures are only found in that which is clearly unusual, then the big secret is that ordinary life is itself full of adventures, full of surprises and challenges that demand our valor and strength to rise to the occasion. When embraced wholeheartedly, ordinary life then becomes an invitation to be extraordinary. And when we pursue our ordinary lives in such a way, we’ll find that there’s nothing at all boring—or easy—about the many adventures right in front of our faces, day in and day out.

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