How to Enjoy Your Daily Life More
on liking what you do, and making it more likable on purpose.
“Before you become a mail person: Do you like putting letters into mailboxes?”
My father—a gently burnt out primary care doctor—posed this question to me about five years ago. I was in the first third of my clinical year of medical school, and trying to figure out which specialty I wanted to go into for residency. I had applied to medical school with the intent of going into psychiatry, and while I did love that, I was surprised to find I also loved a specialty based on physical rehabilitation and chronic pain.
My dad caught me in my anxiety-fueled tailspin, and asked a simple yet intimidating question. How did I want to spend an ordinary Wednesday for the thousands of days ahead of me? What would my specialty’s equivalent of putting the mail in the mailbox, and could I like spending many, many hours doing it for the foreseeable future?
Reader, you know already I ended up in psychiatry. I find the mind-body dyad endlessly fascinating, but putting on sterile gloves and gowns and injecting steroid into a facet joint was not, on its own, interesting to me. I still wanted to know how they felt, thought, and hoped about it, and there just wasn’t as much time for that. In psychiatry, though, that was the 80%.
On Making The Boring More Beautiful
“Oh BROTHER…not another romanticize your life!!! post,” you murmur internally, moving your browser already to the tiny red X to close out.
But HOLD ON. Go with me here—I want to speak of this frankly for a moment.
If there is anything that a life in medicine has taught me so far, it is that a dark sense of humor can get you far…And also, it is that there are things about daily life that are very missable, but we only know that once they are gone (as cliché as it is).
Spending the last eight years in the hospital and my entire life as a daughter of a primary care doctor has been an immersion in understanding that serious, morbid things cannot be avoided. We do a harm to ourselves in some ways, I think, when it becomes too important to not know the pain of those around us or within ourselves. At the same time, the pain and fear cannot be the only thing.
A sustainable life of being in a care profession means a life that is regenerative, and respects the wisdom of Nature. Nature knows that beauty, life, and continuation beyond oneself are the only path forward. Nature knows no word like optimization, She only knows that the bears and the moss and the teensy bug under the log and the moss might live, if only they know how to work together. And she knows that nothing—including the human heart—can be mined and excavated endlessly, as if there is no end.
Being around people who are sick, suffering, and in pain is difficult. It is also deeply meaningful, deeply human, and deeply true. For this reason, it is the task that, week after week, I’m drawn back to understand. It is important to me to learn more and more each day about how to better be with and be of use to those with mental illness—as patients, but more generally, as fellow people.
I once had a therapist who believed hugely, almost mystically, in the power of romantic love. He also believed that marriage was like “sitting in a position long enough to get bed sores” and that, therefore, you must choose the most comfortable, pleasant one, because there will be plenty of difficulties regardless. Delivering mail through rain, sleet, barking dogs barely kept in by a questionable electric fence, or that long-for-talking lady will be bothersome, tiring, drudgery. If you sort of like the feel of different parchment or snooping on people’s bills, delivering Christmas gifts or next season’s catalog, you like putting letters into mailboxes. This liking is a gift current you gives future you—no matter what point in your life or career you are.
To reasonably make repetitive moments of your average Wednesday more beautiful, more funny, or more enjoyable—this is to like what you do.
How to Like What You Do More
Here’s a non-exhaustive list of changes I’ve made or seen others make to enjoy their days just 10% more. It adds up to a lot over a life. Don’t lie to yourself (ie should like does not equal does like), and let yourself experiment. Additionally, sometimes noticing and accepting can help a lot with your frustration: “Oh yes, this is a paper cut. Sometimes this is what happens when you deliver mail. It’s quite annoying, but I like the other parts.”
Morning coffee with milk and sugar, scrolling on phone —> Morning coffee with your favorite affordable creamer, in a series of mugs your friends have gotten you over the years, and reading a long form article someone sent you or that you saved for when you had a moment to savor it.
Working out at a group fitness class or gym in which the noise is too loud for your liking, the cuing is confusing, and you’re not sure why it’s programmed a certain way —> Doing workouts at home, with a Trader Joe’s Grapefruit Candle lit, with instructors who explain in calm ways why you’re doing a certain movement, and how it might help you move through your day.
Washing your sludgy dishes you should have done two days ago, disturbed, bothered, and tired—> Pour yourself a fun sparkly mocktail in your prettiest glass, set a timer for 30 minutes, put on thick gloves that are temperature resistant, and use the dish soap which has a nice citrus smell you enjoy. Play the three long form videos you saved just for this while you wash. Be nice to yourself—mess is proof of life, as they say.
Going out to a random restaurant, booked last minute, to catch up with a friend. You spend $100 on a meal you didn’t enjoy that much, and could barely hear your friend over the hubbub of a busy restaurant. —> Find a beautiful library, and the best cafe down the street. Go get a cup of coffee and catch up, walking and then wandering the library together. Find a book you’ve both been meaning to read. Text the next week about chapter 7, which has a plot twist neither of you had spoiled by #Booktok.
Rush getting ready in the morning, be unable to find your morning allergy medication, quit drying your hair because the counter top is wet and you feel like your skin is dry and bothering you —>Place a small stool in your bathroom, or closet, or next to your nightstand with a small mirror. Do your makeup while you sit, watch a Vogue Beauty Secrets in the background, and drink your coffee or eat your bowl of breakfast. Just being able to sit, and maybe putting an odd trinket you find lovely or photo of you and your sister on the counter to keep the space pleasant to be in.
Take care, and talk soon.
xx,
Margaret of Bad Art Every Day
Really enjoyed this post!