A Slower, Richer Kind of Life

There is a particular fantasy that appears whenever life gets too busy.

You move somewhere quiet.

There is a garden.

Bread is involved.

Your phone has apparently ceased to exist.

And somehow you have become the sort of person who remembers to cut flowers for the kitchen table.

It is a lovely fantasy.

It is also slightly inconvenient if you have a job, children, appointments, laundry, deadlines or any desire to participate in modern civilization.

Maybe a richer life doesn't require escaping the one we already have.

Maybe it begins by experiencing more of it.

01 · STOP SAVING EVERYTHING FOR LATER

The good dishes.

The expensive soap.

The dress you love but somehow never wear.

The recipe that feels a little too special for a Tuesday.

We are remarkably good at saving beautiful things for a future version of life that apparently has better lighting and fewer responsibilities.

Use them now.

Put flowers in the vase.

Open the linen napkins.

Wear the earrings to the grocery store if you want to.

Tuesday has been underestimated.

And there are only so many of them.

02 · MAKE ONE THING TAKE LONGER

Not everything.

That would be exhausting.

Choose one thing.

Make the sauce instead of opening the jar.

Walk somewhere you normally drive.

Sit at the table after everyone has finished eating.

Read the actual book instead of reading about the book.

Let one part of the day refuse to be optimized.

Efficiency is useful.

It just isn't the highest purpose of every hour.

A slower life isn't necessarily a life with less in it. Sometimes it's a life we're finally present enough to notice.

03 · BECOME A REGULAR SOMEWHERE

There is something wonderful about being known in a place.

The bakery where they recognize you.

The Saturday farmers market.

The same walking route.

The library where you know exactly which chair you like.

The little restaurant where you order the same thing often enough that someone eventually says, The usual?

A rich life has landmarks.

Not necessarily impressive ones.

Just places that begin to feel like yours.

04 · GIVE THE DAY A SIGNATURE

Ordinary days blur because they look so much alike.

Give some of them a tiny identity.

Friday pizza.

Saturday morning pancakes.

A walk after Sunday dinner.

The first cold evening gets soup.

The first really beautiful spring morning gets breakfast outside.

Nothing elaborate.

Traditions become traditions because somebody did something once and then thought:

We should do that again.

05 · LET BEAUTY BE USEFUL

A beautiful home shouldn't require everyone to behave as though they are visiting a museum.

Use the wooden board.

Burn the candle.

Let the cookbook get splattered.

Put the good bowl on the counter and fill it with lemons.

Buy the chair you actually want to sit in.

The loveliest objects usually become more beautiful when they acquire evidence of a life.

A scratch.

A stain.

A softened edge.

A story.

THE EXTRAORDINARY ORDINARY

Maybe an extraordinary life isn't built from extraordinary days.

Most of us simply don't get enough of those.

It is built from mornings and dinners and errands and conversations and the fifteen minutes before everyone goes to bed.

The things we repeat.

The places we return to.

The people whose voices we can recognize from another room.

The ordinary life is not what happens while we are waiting for something better to begin.

It is the material.

So make dinner.

Use the plates.

Stay another ten minutes.

Notice the weather.

Buy the flowers occasionally.

Take the long way home when you have the time.

Not because life should always be slow.

Not because every moment needs to be beautiful.

But because every once in a while, an ordinary Tuesday deserves our full attention.

And perhaps that is how an ordinary life becomes a rich one.