Someone I follow on Instagram recently posted an image with a caption that stuck with me:
IT’S OKAY …
To wear old clothes.
To not upgrade your phone.
To buy second-hand items.
To live in a simple home.
It’s okay to live a simple life.
It so happens that I agree with each of these statements – because they reflect my own values and priorities – but that isn’t why the caption lingered in my mind. More than the words themselves, I was drawn to something that I felt the caption alluded to but failed to say out loud.
It’s okay if your life doesn’t look like everyone else’s.
For me, *these* are the magic words. The words that bring me a deep sense of contentment and peace. The words that feel like a deep exhale, a release of tension, worry, and anxiety.
It’s okay if your life doesn’t look like everyone else’s.
The original caption seems appealing (to some of us, at least) because it is validating certain experiences or values that are somewhat outside the norm. But in its specificity, it is missing the point (in my view). The point isn’t to delineate a specific way in which it’s okay to deviate from The Norm. The point is to demolish The Norm as a point of comparison. Better yet, to demolish comparison altogether.
The message need only say: IT’S OKAY.
[I mean, if we want to be extra specific, I guess it should say IT’S OKAY as long as it does no harm]
For me, the last 2 years have been a journey of twinned, sometimes intertwined paths: self-discovery alongside grief; self-discovery through grief. I categorically reject the notion that hardships or loss are allotted to us as means to an end – “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” – but I acknowledge that grief has fundamentally changed both the landscape of my life and the way I perceive it.
One of the things I’ve reflected on a lot in the last 2 years is the concept of a “rich life”, a term I’m borrowing from the personal finance world even though I am not especially interested in the financial side of it. Your “rich life” isn’t what happens when you have the best that money can buy; it’s what happens when you live exactly as you feel called to live. Picture your ideal day in your mind; your “rich life” is your ideal day, every day. Of course, in a capitalist system, money is inevitably a necessary ingredient to any version of a “rich life” – even if that means nothing more extravagant than sitting on a porch all day, sipping coffee and reading a good book; but the capitalist credo of “more money for the sake of more money” isn’t what a “rich life” is about. A “rich life” is a life lived with intention – as though each day were a full cup that you savour to the very last drop. What the cup is filled with, that’s up to you to decide.
Ramit Sethi writes that “[p]art of creating your Rich Life is the willingness to be unapologetically different.” This is what has been resonating with me a lot lately. Grief was a world-shattering experience for me, but the upside is that it unmoored me – fully, for the first time – from a lot of the “shoulds” that had provided the framework for my life up to that point. Should do this. Should be that. All gone in the blink of an eye. In its place there was suddenly room. Room to look around, to take stock, to decide the “this” and the “that”. And in that process of discovery, I was isolated from the outside world because that’s something else that grief does. But, in this context, “protected” might be a good word too. I made decisions about what kind of life I wanted to live going forward, and I never once asked myself “how does this look to other people, how does it compare to what other people are doing”. I realized later, of course, that many parts of my “rich life” looked very different than The Norm and that realization brought forward another journey, this time of acceptance – and, beyond that, of celebration of being “unapologetically different”.
I want to be careful not to suggest that understanding your “rich life” is only possible through grief. While it was certainly a part of my journey, it wasn’t the key. What’s necessary is the willingness to go inward and find what is meaningful to you, without external judgments or values to distract you. Whatever prompts you or helps you along that path is going to be as unique to you as the destination itself.
IT’S OKAY.
Very well said. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Love this – so thoughtful and helpful!
Beautiful post! I really appreciate your point that it’s not just “ok to live the simple life” but, rather, to deviate from the norm – whatever that looks like. In my neighborhood and circle of friends, I would say that living the “simple life” IS the norm, sartorially speaking: leggings and sweatshirts all day, every day. (And – that’s ok!!) But I find that it takes courage sometimes to waltz up to the school pickup wearing the clothes that make ME happy. So thank you for your perspective and inspiration:)
It does take courage to show up in ways that buck the norms, because some still perceive that as a threat to their own value system somehow. Even though … it’s like, someone liking red sweaters doesn’t mean that your favourite blue sweaters are garbage so you should not feel compelled to yell at them about the superiority of blue sweaters – red sweater person is just living their life! Social media is the worst place for that too.
Interestingly, I’ve been thinking along these lines lately. Too many things prevent me from living the life I want, but I feel like I lost my way and am not even doing the bits I could.
That’s a tough situation to be in – hugs! When I was feeling lost, I found it helpful to set aside a little bit of time every day to be with myself – turn inward and tune into my intuition/gut feelings. Sometimes it was going for a walk, sometimes doing a tarot-guided meditation, sometimes sitting in my garden. Reconnecting with my inner voice over time helped me figure out what I needed and wanted from my life.
Thank you so much for writing this and putting these feelings into eloquent words. My mom died this year from a 1 year + journey with cancer (f cancer) and I have felt “unmoored” with her. Thank you.
I am so sorry for your loss, Sherry. Cancer is an ugly beast. I completely understand that “unmoored” feeling — I wish you the best through this difficult part of the journey.