Considering the Average – A Defence of the Everydays by Bence Bognár

I don’t travel solo. I don’t feel the intrinsic need to find myself through being in big, narratively significant situations; the adventurer’s spirit isn’t calling for me to move across the globe or even go on exchange. Is this cowardice, or sedentariness, each more boring and unseemly than the other? If you think so, I’d probably have a hard time convincing you otherwise. Yet to me, emotionally, this doesn’t appear to be the case. It’s not like I feel fearful or apathetic when it comes to major life events, but I also feel no need to push myself off-track for the sake of it. Certainly, in an environment as dynamic and fluid (and sometimes volatile) as UCU, this has led me to wonder for years what exactly was wrong with me; or, if wrong isn’t the right word, what could have been making the difference. Recently, I think I’ve found it: the merit I choose to put into the everydays.

 Instead, I’m talking about the magic that one can find in the mundane, arguably more easily there than somewhere insecure and unestablished.

To be clear, I’m not talking about routines. Routines freak me out: the concept of, say, a Monday of two consecutive weeks looking the same makes my skin crawl, my attention already drawn to whatever could distract me from the infinite boredom that continuous sameness tends to bring. Instead, I’m talking about the magic that one can find in the mundane, arguably more easily there than somewhere insecure and unestablished. No matter how fun, I never feel comfortable during vacation, nor during a festival or other such singular events. What I can see the most beauty in, when it comes to how I spend my time, is whatever has been established as normal in my life, which is also pleasant. 

I love to suddenly happen upon the magic in a walk with a friend, with whom it’s established that we go for walks sometimes. Using the same espresso maker on most mornings is beautiful to me, and at times being offered still-warm drip coffee by a unitmate only serves to break the pattern, enhancing the usual experience. Sometimes, when I go to my room after a regular evening conversation with people I live with and like, I feel so happy I could cry. 

This is not just passive joy; it feels like more than stopping to smell the roses, finding beauty in the small things, and all the other clichés. What I propose is an active effort of pattern recognition. Think about the things you do, the ones that feel normal, and that repeat with some alterations. Do they feel right? Do they make you happier? Do they make you feel like a good person? Could you do something to change them for the better? Patterns tend to be extremely difficult to break unless you replace them with something else, so what could you change? 

 Isn’t everything so much easier when you can (also) be gleeful about the regular things you’ll do tomorrow, just a single night away?

Maybe I’m biased, but going on regular morning walks with the right person seems easier and more cost-effective than backpacking across a continent – and I’m definitely not saying do not backpack across a continent, because that’s an awesome adventure, but not something you can do all the time. I think you cannot truly like life if you don’t enjoy the things you do all the time. This is what I use as the main marker of whether things are generally going well: am I enjoying the average day I just had? Because I should be. Because I (and you) deserve more than to need to look forward to the next Major Event: such Major Events unfortunately tend to be very far in the future. Isn’t everything so much easier when you can (also) be gleeful about the regular things you’ll do tomorrow, just a single night away?

I think one’s quality of life ought not be measured by the extra things, the cherries they put on top of it, but rather their average hour, an 11 AM on an unimportant and unsexy November weekday. If this hour feels bad, that isn’t normal, at least not to me: it means something is wrong. Of course, as someone decently anxiety-prone, there will be normal days (just as there will be such major events) that feel awful and miserable for no good reason, but if all is well, this should be a statistical anomaly. What I propose is a focus on the average, so, in the same manner that the extraordinarily positive days aren’t what I prefer to focus on, do I find it unwise to ascribe too much significance to (or, God forbid, derive conclusions from!) irregularly horrible ones. But if every day, or most days, when nothing major happens feels bad, if you can only feel the magic when something huge is happening, please: remember my words, and consider the average.